Body-Modifying Technologies and the Rights of Self-Governance Within and Outside of National Defense (2017)

Curator: Sharon R. Bradley-Munn, University of Wollongong, Australia, Information and Communications, Department of Philosophy | June 2017

Collection Editor: Isabel Pedersen
Acquisitions Editor: Andrew Iliadis
Collection Archivists: Samantha Reid and Sharon Caldwell

This current research provides a general scope on the rights of self-autonomy in the interchange with body-modifying technologies and has been collected as preliminary work focusing on relevant constitutional laws, policy, and Bills adopted within New Brunswick, as well as Canada as a whole. As such, it contrasts various body-altering practices (i.e. restorative health procedures versus altering one’s physiology in a way that is not innate to humanity). It not only looks at human rights but also the rights of refusal as well as the limitations of rights, shedding light on sub-cultural practices (i.e. non-main stream body-modifying). Free adopters, (i.e. individual’s that alter one’s appearance as a mere aesthetic preference) is contrasted to practices that focus on restorative medicine (i.e. what is physically innate to ‘being’). This approach is taken while endeavouring to avoid any extreme forms of classification, as such, it takes a phenomenological approach, and serves to represent the views of the insider and/or the social participant while offering an interpretive philosophical view as to where such practices may be leading civility.

In a more general sense, this body of work investigates technology at large and the way it may or may not surpass the individual in one’s willingness to adapt both inside and outside of organizational constraints, (i.e. National Defense) with a focus on subcutaneous practices--ranging from body-art (i.e. skin-branding and tattoos) to skin-embedded devices (i.e. Neuroprosthetic brain chips). Throughout this research, various recommendations have been prepared, designed for the protection of the individual’s moral autonomy as well as safe-guarding corporate rights such as found within collective identities.