Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: Medical geography begins with sickness and health. The policies \naddressing disease, and the causes promoting good health are, \nliterally, vital. Here, as in social science as a whole, an historical \nperspective helps: Things could have been different and may yet be different \nagain. Parallels between past and present propose lessons for today. \nThis approach is well captured in Mitchell Dean’s summary of Michel \nFoucault’s project as the writing of critical and effective history. Critical \nhistory highlights the contingency of the present, and effective history \ngives us resources with which to consider alternatives. An important and \ncontested area that is illuminated by such a “political historicism” is the \nnature of the social. This has both a material and a discursive context and \nboth are essential for medical geographers. Its material setting includes the \nbiological conditions of human existence. These conditions are resolutely \nsocial. Historians influenced by Foucault have described the emergence \nof the social as a distinct field of knowledge, expertise and government. \nThere is now a corpus of important geographical works on the emergence of \nsocial policy in the areas of health, sickness, welfare, and urban planning. \nPublic health is one area where this discovery and invention of the social \noccurs repeatedly. Far from being the individualistic Robinson Crusoe of \nliberal or bourgeois ideology, human beings require a social shell if they \nare to thrive.
Author: Gerry Kearns
Language: English
Topic: Foucault, Power, and Ethics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2339547573