Governing Doped Bodies: The World Anti-Doping Agency and the Global Culture of Surveillance

Abstract

This essay examines the governing practices of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), an organization established in 1999 to cope with the crisis of illicit performance-enhancing drug use in international sport. The background, structure, and policies of WADA are analyzed while reflecting upon recent cultural studies debates on governmentality. In doing so, it is shown how WADA policies fundamentally work to police athletic bodies. Also demonstrated is that WADA embodies a First World, technology-driven governance of doping.

The World Anti-Doping Agency: constructing a hybrid organisation in permanent stress (dis)order?

“…The IOC initiated the World Anti-Doping Conference in Lausanne during February 1999, which was the first step towards the creation of WADA (Houlihan 2002; see also Miah 2002;Verroken 2005;Verroken and Mottram 2005). In a Foucault-inspired essay, Park (2005) has analysed WADA from a 'governmentality' perspective, stating that '. .…”

WADA, the Promises of Law and the Landscapes of Antidoping Regulation

“…At the same time, despite these corporate contours, sport has also been recognized as a distinctive field, 3 especially in the ways it has operated within and alongside other apparatuses of social control and nation‐building (see Brownell 1995; Hargreaves 1987; Pfister and Reese 1995). Park (2005) identifies sport as “a central cultural technology of governing the social body” in which athletes, especially elite competitors, have historically served as “signifer[s] of state power” that “help maintain the body of the population to be healthy, efficient, and productive” and serve as “a means to discipline the bodies of the population and construct a docile and healthy labor force” (177). In part due to its power as a socializing practice, many governments have taken a keen interest in preserving the integrity of sport, for it not only reflects societal dynamics, but has the capacity to change them.…”

“…These include, but are not limited to, the Whereabouts Program, which requires athletes to notify authorities where they are one hour per day when they are in or out of competition, and the Biological Passport, an electronic record of blood and urine profiles kept to document abnormalities that may serve as indicators of banned substance use. Because WADA depends upon evidence obtained via sample collection and findings substantiated by scientific surveillance and analysis, some have characterized it as a form of “technology‐driven governance” (Park 2005). Furthermore, an elaborate and technical set of guidelines outlined in the Code guides and standardizes the implementation of these technologies.…”

“…If we lose it, the greater loser will be the sport movement in the world … because doping does not only kill athletes, it kills sport” (Interview, Madrid, November 17, 2007). Such representations are, according to Park (2005), symptomatic of a technology‐driven governance, for this kind of “arms race mentality” requires continually innovating technologies of surveillance and testing in order to catch athletes who presumably have access to newer, undetectable substances and methods. Examining kairos within this context, thus, highlights conference presenters’ efforts to substantiate the crisis WADA counteracts and, in turn, re‐establish the need for the agency.…”

Potentially harmful advantage to athletes: a putative connection between UGT2B17 gene deletion polymorphism and renal disorders with prolonged use of anabolic androgenic steroids

“…Reasons for this criticism encompassed ethical issues around constant surveillance [14,15], analytical difficulties and costs [16,17], as well as marked inter-individual differences [18-20]. …”