Foucault, Health and Medicine

The reception of Michel Foucault's work in the social sciences and humanities has been phenomenal. Foucault's concepts and methodology have encouraged new approaches to old problems and opened up new lines of enquiry. This book assesses the contribution of Foucault's work to research and thinking in the area of health and medicine, and shows how key researchers in the sociology of health and illness are currently engaging with his ideas. Foucault, Health and Medicine explores such important issues as: Foucault's concept of 'discourse', the critique of the 'medicalization' thesis, the analysis of the body and the self, Foucault's concept of 'bio-power' in the analysis of health education, the implications of Foucault's ideas for feminist research on embodiment and gendered subjectivities, the application of Foucault's notion of governmentality to the analysis of health policy, health promotion, and the consumption of health. Foucault, Health and Medicine offers a `state of the art' overview of Foucaldian scholarship in the area of health and medicine. It will provide a key reference for both students and researchers working in the areas of medical sociology, health policy, health promotion and feminist studies.

Alan Petersen is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Murdoch, Western Australia. Robin Bunton, is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough.

List of contributors, Foreword: From govemmentality to risk, some reflections on Foucault's contribution to medical sociology, Acknowledgements, Introduction: Foucault's medicine, Part I Fabricating Foucault, Part II Discourses of health and medicine, Part III The body, the self, Part IV Governmentality, Index