Lecture 11) Political Explanations For Health Impacts

Davies and Harre’s positioning theory: all text producers position themselves and others through

Their discursive utterances

• e.g., in writing or conversation

Davies and Harre’s positioning theory: when it comes to others, this is in immediate relation to an ‘other’ but also in relation to

More far-flung or distant others

Davies and Harre’s positioning theory: The way people position themselves and others is based on

Larger storylines or cultural narratives that are relevant to their lives

Davies and Harre’s positioning theory: Positioning is an _ process; individuals are…..

Interactive

• “constituted and reconstituted through the various discursive practices in which they participate

Davies and Harre’s positioning theory: When it comes to how positioning is an interactive social process…. Davies and Harre assume that….

An individual emerges through the processes of social interaction

Davies and Harre’s positioning theory: we can also see connects well to insights from last week about the

Agency/structure debate and how individuals shape and are shaped by the societies in which they live

What is a rhetorical appeal

An attempt to persuade the reader/audience of something

Five political explanations that shape health outcomes and the health work people do to navigate

1) Neoliberal ideologies

2) Globalization of capital

3) Processes of medicalization (with some societies more “medicalized” than others)

4) Social policies (e.g., that shape the health of populations)

5) Colonialism

What are the three chief assumptions of neoliberalism

1) Promote and favour free market, private enterprises, with the transfer of control of economic factors form the government to the private sector

2) Reduce and limit government spending, government regulation, and public ownership

3) Rely on and promote individual responsibility

Neoliberal ideology has spread around the globe in the past _ years

40 (varying rates)

What is globalization

• Refers to the process of integrating governments, cultures and financial markets through international trade into a single world market

How is Globalization brought about

By cross-border trades in goods and services, as well as ‘flows’ of investments, people, and information.

What are the three core tenets of medicalization

1) Defining or reframing a problem in medical terms (usually as an illness or disorder)

2) Interpreting it within a medical framework

3) Treating it with a medical intervention

Social Policies have

Significant impact on the health of populations

Social policy measures help to

Redistribute income within a society and to improve health of everyone

Some important dimensions of social policies are

1) Health spending

2) Health regulations/monitoring

3) healthcare system structures

Colonialism is the guiding force that

Manipulated the historic, political, social, and economic contexts shaping Indigenous/state/non-Indigenous relations and account for the public erasure of political and economic marginalization, and racism today.

Colonialism can variously invovle

1) Pathologizing Indigenous people and their health problems

2) Disregarding Indigenous cultures, worldviews or other dimensions of life

3) Furthering colonization or failing to recognize and challenge histories and legacies of colonization