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<p>In clinical sleep medicine, sleep is treated as a&#xa0;physiological phenomenon, yet it is not readily accessed through a&#xa0;single organ or clearly bounded anatomical site in clinical practice. This relative absence of a&#xa0;stable topographic anchor did not prevent the emergence of sleep medicine, but it did shape the ways in which the field stabilised its objects, technologies, and institutional position within medicine. How, then, did sleep medicine emerge as a&#xa0;distinct and legitimate clinical discipline, as reflected most recently in the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11)? In this article, we reconstruct how, within sleep medicine, this problem was addressed by partially reconfiguring the medical understanding of the body itself. Drawing on the concept of the <i>temporalised body</i>, developed through ethnographic fieldwork in German and Swiss sleep laboratories and professional sleep-medical contexts, we argue that sleep becomes physiologically intelligible primarily through temporal rather than the historically dominant spatial organisation. Continuous recording technologies such as polysomnography render bodily processes observable as rhythms, cycles, and phase relations, allowing sleep to be classified as normal or pathological without relying on a&#xa0;single dedicated anatomical locus. We further argue that this temporalisation of the body necessarily entails epistemic precarity, as physiological normality is defined through relational patterns that require normative interpretation rather than through stable structural markers. Importantly, sleep medicine does not overcome this precarity but develops sophisticated ways of working with it in clinical practice. Sleep medicine therefore appears not as a&#xa0;marginal field defined by the absence of a&#xa0;dedicated organ, but rather as a&#xa0;domain that illustrates how medical knowledge can operate under conditions of temporal variability, coordination, and uncertainty.</p>

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From topography to temporality. Rethinking the sleeping body

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月13日

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  • Svenja Reinhardt,
  • Sebastian Weste

摘要

In clinical sleep medicine, sleep is treated as a physiological phenomenon, yet it is not readily accessed through a single organ or clearly bounded anatomical site in clinical practice. This relative absence of a stable topographic anchor did not prevent the emergence of sleep medicine, but it did shape the ways in which the field stabilised its objects, technologies, and institutional position within medicine. How, then, did sleep medicine emerge as a distinct and legitimate clinical discipline, as reflected most recently in the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11)? In this article, we reconstruct how, within sleep medicine, this problem was addressed by partially reconfiguring the medical understanding of the body itself. Drawing on the concept of the temporalised body, developed through ethnographic fieldwork in German and Swiss sleep laboratories and professional sleep-medical contexts, we argue that sleep becomes physiologically intelligible primarily through temporal rather than the historically dominant spatial organisation. Continuous recording technologies such as polysomnography render bodily processes observable as rhythms, cycles, and phase relations, allowing sleep to be classified as normal or pathological without relying on a single dedicated anatomical locus. We further argue that this temporalisation of the body necessarily entails epistemic precarity, as physiological normality is defined through relational patterns that require normative interpretation rather than through stable structural markers. Importantly, sleep medicine does not overcome this precarity but develops sophisticated ways of working with it in clinical practice. Sleep medicine therefore appears not as a marginal field defined by the absence of a dedicated organ, but rather as a domain that illustrates how medical knowledge can operate under conditions of temporal variability, coordination, and uncertainty.