Overview

ISBN: 978-1-921729-36-2   ~   ii +126 pages   ~   September 2012

Editors:

Rick Iedema
Centre for Health Communication
University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Irena C Veljanova
School of Social Sciences
University of Western Sydney, Australia

The purpose of this special issue of Health Sociology Review (2012, issue 21/3) is to collect and review international viewpoints and analyses addressing the rise in self-care, self-management and co-production of health care. While in health policy circles self care and co-production are strongly promoted, the obstacles to and social determinants of patient participation in self healing and self care practices are less frequently addressed.

The Guest Editors of this issue of Health Sociology Review bring together papers from international scholars to open up debate about this phenomenon with an eye to critically informing future policy and health service design thinking.

This special issue includes theoretical and empirical papers addressing topics such as:

1. Alternative and self-healing practices that go beyond conventional medicine and publicly available, government-funded services;
2. The empowering effect of free and open source technology vis-à-vis the status of the individual as knowledgeable agent;
3. The effect of DIY practices on health care industries and services;
4. The embeddedness of these practices in everyday life;
5. The responses that are being mobilised by establishment science;
6. The consequences of these movements for economic relations determining the health care industry;
7. Knowledge 'anarchy' - knowledge production by non-experts and whether and how this informs prevailing science and medicine;
8. The relevance of these movements in relation to theories of medical power.