YELLOW SEPTEMBER: HETEROGENEITY, BIOPOWER AND CONSTRUCTION OF EFFECTS OF SELF-HELP SENSE

Abstract

Contemporary society is witnessing the emergence of discourses that are in favor of life, so, in the face of public suicide prevention campaigns, such as that of Yellow September, practices and guidelines for caring oneself and for the other receive contours of the self-help discourse. With this in mind that the present work proposes to investigate the heterogeneity of discursive practices around the campaigns for the preservation of life during Yellow September, in order to perceive the regularities and singularities of this discursive object. And, from this perspective, it reflects on how the subject is involved in power relations, in order to promote the construction of modes of subjectivation, guaranteeing the regulation of life. In fact, four discursive materialities are selected as corpus for the undertaking of the analyzes that deal with the aforementioned campaign, arising from different instances of production, produced in the years 2020 and 2021. As theoretical-methodological assumptions, we take as a basis the Discourse Analysis from a French perspective, based on the contributions of Michel Foucault, observing the different discursive strategies present in the materialities. The analyzes point to the articulation between disciplinary and biopower techniques, mobilized in campaigns with a view to managing the principle of valuing life, reinforcing how the mechanisms of power regulate and organize subjects in the ideal of a healthy society. Associated with this, discourses are identified that are crossed by the effects of a sense of self-help, which build a discourse of care for the self and for the other, aiming at social well-being.