[Workshop] Pharmaceutical becomings, Tokyo, Japan

TOKYO - Upon the invitation of Prof. Yosuke Shimazono of the University of Osaka, I came over to Japan to join a workshop entitled " “Pharmaceutical becomings: Emerging subjectivities in the age of pharmaceuticalization". Held in AEON Compass, Yeasu Conference Hall,  the workshop's other speakers included Prof. Shimazono (Osaka University) who talked about the use of immunosuppresants, Junko Iida (Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare) who discussed palliative care, and Miho Ushiyama who reflected on the 'de-pharmaceuticalisation' of people who refuse to use steroids to treat atopic dermatitis.

The abstract of my presentation, which was about height and growth supplements in the Philippines, is as follows:

In the Philippines, a class of vitamins and nutritional supplements that are growing in popularity are those that are colloquially known as pampatangkad (height enhancers) or ‘growth supplements’. Marketed for children and teenagers and imagined to contain “hormones” or “growth factors”, these products contain the legal disclaimer that they have “no approved therapeutic claims”, but their imagery - of measuring sticks, teenage basketball players,  young beauty queens, and scientific terminology (i.e. “Chlorella Growth Factor”) reinforce the perception that they are pampatangkad.

My presentation seeks to make sense of these products’ emergence and popularity in the Philippines - as part of a broader study that looks into how height figures in the everyday lives of young people in the country. My first insight is that these  products are involved in the ‘co-production’ (Jasanoff, 2003) of the notions of height: they not just reflect, but also reinforce, the meanings and materialities of tallness and shortness in the Philippines. Imagined or real, however, the efficacy of these products requires a conceptual framework, and this is accomplished by the reification of the idea of a “hormone” in popular imagination.

Interestingly, the panelists say that they do not see the same pervasiveness of the value of tallness in Japan, citing anime and TV shows that depict smaller people defeating big enemies, and the absence of height requirements for jobs. Surely, a comparative survey of the meanings of height in the region (and globally) would be a very fascinating research direction.