Page 154 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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HEALTH SOCIOLOGY 125

shaped the early writings in medical sociol- said that many social theorists are less con-
ogy and the later field of health sociology. It cerned with the social patterning of health and
is symptomatic that the Research Committee illness; the experience of illness; and the
on Medical Sociology of the International delivery of health care – abiding concerns of
Sociological Association, established in the sociology of health – than they are with
1963, formally changed its name to ‘Research the body as an arena for consumption, desire,
Committee on Sociology of Health’ in 1986. and body projects. The social meaning of
This change reflected not only the shifting obesity, for example, is typically given far
focus from illness to health but also develop- more attention than its material conse-
ments in the theoretical perspectives in main- quences in terms of morbidity and mortality
stream sociology. The early division between (e.g., Bauman, 2005).
sociology of and in medicine was an effort to Our review is Western-centric, which itself
highlight the specific theory-based concerns attests to the narrow focus of the sociology
of sociology as compared to the medicine- of health and illness until very recently.
driven inquiries of the latter (Straus, 1999). The three themes – conflict, competition,
The shift from an approach characterized as cooperation – are self-evidently global con-
medical sociology to the sociology of health cerns played out differently in different parts
has developed in two stages. of the world (e.g., Doyal, 1995; Gallagher
The first stage became apparent in the and Subedi, 1995; Kawachi and Wamala,
1970s when sociology began to take a critical 2007). A more global perspective, which is
stance toward itself as well as toward medi- now beginning to emerge in the discipline,
cine (Twaddle, 1982: 350). Sociologists would certainly raise additional questions
began to promote health issues and an about the relevance of particular theories or
approach that took into account the broad theoretical approaches.
range of institutions and occupations that
influenced health. A second phase emerged
in the 1990s, when a new post-Fordist econ-
omy with its neo-liberal policies and THE MACRO-SOCIOLOGICAL THEMES
demands for flexibility were reflected in GIVING RISE TO MEDICAL
the rise of consumption and a new type of SOCIOLOGY
individualism, and new health policies that
had to be conceptualized and understood The social-causation perspective
(Annandale and Field, 2001). For example,
cultural sociology and post-structural theo- The nineteenth-century classic texts in soci-
rizing have inspired sociological work on the ology explored the character of industrial and
social construction of the gendered body, on urban society, and the social order of moder-
narratives of health and illness, and on health nity. Classical social theory dealt with health
promotion policies as part of a new type of as an indicator of the distribution of resources
surveillance and governance in society. in modern society but did not look at it as a
Sociologists, who once gave little or no social institution. Emile Durkheim (1952),
consideration to matters of health, have been for example, treated the suicide rate as an
drawn to do so following the corporeal turn indicator of the character and degree of
that has accompanied these shifts. This has social integration and social regulation in
led some optimistically to assert that, modern and traditional societies rather than
whereas once the sociology of health was an seeing it as a public health issue. By contrast,
‘outsider’, ‘much that is exciting in contem- Friedrich Engels (1987) examined the poor
porary sociology is gaining from, and con- health of the English working class and saw
tributing to, the field of health and illness’ health as a key to characterizing their material
(Bury and Gabe, 2004: 1). Yet it still has to be conditions and location in the class structure.