Health
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This article explores the emergence of a 'regime of hope' in the context of oncology care, practice and research. More specifically, my focus is the emergence, since the 1970s or so, of hope scales and indexes used to metricise the emotional states of cancer patients. These usually take the form of psychometric tests designed and deployed in order to subject affective life to calculative and rational scrutiny. ⋯ But it has been equally important to recognise the extent to which emotions are discursively ordered and structured as objects and effects of power. This article charts the emergence of hope scales historically alongside wider historical forces in the metrification of life and health and more specifically the emotions. It locates hope scales in a post-war climate of individual resilience and perseverant enterprise and the significance of hope as a naturalised vitalistic attribute of biopolitical life.