Abstract
Sleep is an issue that affects every living human but, as Simon Williams discusses in The Politics of Sleep, these effects are constructed within socially and culturally variable contexts. Well-written and carefully crafted, Williams takes his readers on a journey that moves from discussions of so-called fast capitalism and its capacity to impinge on the lives of citizens, to engage issues of (in)equality and (in)justice, following which he discusses issues of transgression and taboo, before closing with a short tour of the growing ‘science of sleep’ and its critical implications for the future study of sleep. Underlying his discussion is the central theme that sleep can and should be considered as a ‘prism’ for the study of social life itself.
Williams performs the comparative work ably, treating the quantitative differences in hours spent sleeping by age and by sex as well as charting historical and cross-cultural differences. The social significance of all these differences is noted and plausible interpretations are made (although he is scrupulously honest regarding the historical problems of accurately extrapolating the quantity and quality of sleep prior to the 20th century). For Williams, understanding how much sleep people get involves integrating the private individual realm into larger public, corporate and political structures, illustrating how individual biological rhythms are colonized by larger societal expectations. Williams makes larger claims for ‘sleep’ as a way of organizing the experience of inhabiting a 21st-century late capitalist society. For Williams, sleep is both ‘a problem and prism, a site and source, of political power relations and investment in the late modern age’ (pp. xi–xii).
The book examines the dark side of sleep deprivation as well as treating those contexts that are and are not acknowledged as public safety issues as part of his discussion of so-called ‘sleep negatives’. Certain professions (e.g. air traffic control) do not permit sleep-deprived employees whereas others regard the sleep deprivation as necessary rite of passage, a proving ground of professional machismo. Two apt examples discussed in the text are junior physicians and politicians, pointing to the UK example of Thatcher (who famously regarded more than a few hours’ sleep as a form of weakness) in particular. In short, ‘drowsiness is the new drunkenness’ and Williams connects semi-consciousness with the broader sociology of altered states, discussing how the criminalization of ‘drowsy driving’ has become a growing issue, particularly in the United States.
Williams presents an eclectic theoretical argument. Foucauldian understandings of the governance of bodies may be applied to theoretical arguments concerning sleep’s relationship with ‘biopower’. The ability to produce normative bodies, to regulate bodily cycles of consciousness and unconsciousness and the timing of regenerative procedures represents the peculiar intimacy with which a power–knowledge axis may be understood to function. Indeed, the complex governance of sleep represents ‘not just another prime instance or example of the governance of bodies per se, but the governance of (un) consciousness in all its richness, complexities and contradictions’ (p. 161; emphasis in original).
This discussion is not permitted to remain within the realm of a theoretical reconfiguration, however. The social sciences and the humanities have a political responsibility to reflect on an ongoing contest between so-called ‘sleep negative’ and ‘sleep positive’ agendas, albeit without necessarily taking a normative or a prescriptive stance. This discussion is especially pertinent when discussing parenting and ‘sleep rights’, connecting immediately with the most sleep conscious phase of most adults’ existence. The extent to which a ‘sleep positive agenda’ can help to define a broader framework of civic entitlements is at the heart of this book’s practical concern.
The quantification of sleep relates to its commodification and sleep itself is imagined as a vital corporeal commodity. Judged as a commodity, sleep must compete within a complex of other commodities designed to prolong a state of supposedly productive wakefulness. ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ is a condition linked to stimulants such as caffeine and the corporate structure of Starbucks. To be ‘wired awake’ connects with long-standing technologies such as the electric light – which, since the late 19th century, has prolonged the possibility of nocturnal labour. The concept of ‘labour saving’ technology has been replaced by labour-extending technologies that reinforce a ‘sleep-negative’ paradigm.
Cultural variants associated with sleep are described with particular poignancy in Williams’s discussion of the Japanese ‘custom or practice of Inemuri’. Williams informs us that ‘[i]t is indeed quite customary and acceptable in Japanese society, it seems, to doze or drop off to sleep in public (at a lecture, meeting, party or other social event for instance), as long as the sleeper or quasi-sleeper is ready and willing to relinquish “sleep” at the appropriate moment when their attention is required’ (p. 94). He goes on to point out that both China and India also exhibit a high degree of tolerance for ‘daytime as well as public sleeping or napping’. However, Williams goes on to say that in all of these cultures there are clearly defined ‘social activities’ where sleeping is never allowed, saying that it is not just the when, but the where and especially the with whom that is culturally dictated regarding sleep both historically and cross-culturally.
Arguing that sleep is a (contested) ‘final frontier’ of both ‘biomedicalization’ and ‘pharmaceuticalization’, this study points in two different directions: on the one hand, setting out to help those with sleep difficulties; on the other hand, setting out to illuminate the biological limitations associated with sleep. To ignore these limitations is in some ways to seek to transcend our biological humanity in the service of the dubious project of imagining humans as more compliant industrial or military machines. The chapter on transgressions and taboo integrates seemingly disparate notions of sleep from fictional representations of sleep to military applications of sleep regulation. Without explicitly mentioning Freddy Krueger’s nightmarish sleep-averse world, the reader is nonetheless reminded that such nightmares are a reality for a growing number of people around the world.
The Politics of Sleep represents an important contribution to cutting-edge theoretical work being conducted by researchers regarding all aspects of the biopoliticalization of life itself. Beyond the topic of sleep this text will appeal to readers interested in other important vital corporeal public issues, including, for this reviewer, breast milk feeding and drinking or eating. This book is certainly one I would recommend to both introductory or experienced researchers interested in the health, medical and society and technology questions of the late modern age.