Brain culture: Shaping policy through neuroscience
Jessica Pykett
Abstract
This book offers a timely analysis of the impact of rapidly advancing knowledge about the brain, mind and behaviour on contemporary public policy and practice. Drawing on in-depth interviews with professionals in a range of social spheres including architecture and urban design, education, and the workplace, the book examines the global spread of policy strategies, UK based policy experiments and everyday practice informed by ‘brain culture’. It explores how neuroscientific, behavioural and psychological explanation have become increasingly influential in such fields, and examines their reperc ... More
This book offers a timely analysis of the impact of rapidly advancing knowledge about the brain, mind and behaviour on contemporary public policy and practice. Drawing on in-depth interviews with professionals in a range of social spheres including architecture and urban design, education, and the workplace, the book examines the global spread of policy strategies, UK based policy experiments and everyday practice informed by ‘brain culture’. It explores how neuroscientific, behavioural and psychological explanation have become increasingly influential in such fields, and examines their repercussions for governing citizens. Analysis of a neural turn in research, policy and practice is offered through the development of a geographical focus on behaviour, including the role of context, scale and situatedness in re-shaping political agency. The book provides a grounded critical commentary on the burgeoning field of social, cultural and political aspects of brain culture. It offers an alternative set of explanations for what matters in explaining why people behave in certain ways and how citizens’ behaviour could and should be governed.
Keywords:
behavioural science,
brain culture,
context,
human geography,
neuroscience,
public policy,
scale,
situatedness
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781447314042 |
| Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: January 2016 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781447314042.001.0001 |
