He died and ribirth! A foucauldian reading on the football player Christian Eriksen

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Sudden death is characterized by a sudden cardiac arrest that leads the individual to death, generally, when reaching high levels of physical effort. In athletes of all ages, including football players, an increase in the number of cases has been noted, even in the face of medical-technological investment in preventive strategies. This essay does not disregard the biological implications of sudden death, but aims to investigate it from the perspective of Human and Social Sciences, more precisely from the theoretical-methodological perspectives of Michel Foucault and Nikolas Rose. Thus, the objective was to analyze how specifically the sudden death of football player Christian Eriksen can reveal questions about the different health and risk rationalities present in body practices and sports.
DEVELOPMENT: The theoretical approach was based on (post-) Foucauldian theorizations about control and management of bodies to reflect on living and dying, mainly on the interconnections between spectacle and biopolitics and on the control carried out by artificial and technological devices. This theoretical perspective on sudden death through biopolitics assumes significant importance for Physical Education, as it is understood that the regulation of bodies in movement cannot be limited to the logic of biomedical rationality, incorporating other discursive sensibilities about exercise practices and health.
CONCLUSION: In conclusion, it was captured how the notions of life-death and medical-technological mechanisms are regulated and managed in favor of a high-performance athlete who, at all times, becomes self-controlled under truths that modulate the biological in the context of body practices and sports. The analytical power of this essay takes reflections beyond the mere consideration of the “finitude of life” by examining how structures of power, control and discourses shape understandings of death and multiple care practices in different social spaces.