Charisma and the clinic

Abstract

Here we argue that ‘charisma’, a concept widely taken up within geography and the environmental humanities, is of utility to the social studies of medicine. Charisma, we suggest, draws attention to the affective dimensions of medical work, the ways in which these affective relations are structured, and the manner in which they are intimately tied to particular material-discursive contexts. The paper differentiates this notion of charisma from Weber’s analyses of the ‘charismatic leader’ before detailing three forms of charisma - ecological (which relates to the affordances an entity has), corporeal (related to bodily interaction) and aesthetic (pertaining to an entity’s initial visual and emotional impact). Drawing on interview data we then show how this framework can be used to understand the manner in which psychologists and neuroscientists have come to see and act on autism. We conclude the article by suggesting that examining charisma within healthcare settings furthers the concept, in particular by drawing attention to the discursive features of ecologies and the ‘non-innocence’ of charisma.