Zygmunt Bauman: On the Quest for Health
Zygmunt Bauman, who sadly passed away at the age of 91 in January, was one of the most influential sociologists of his generation. Bauman was Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds from 1972 until his retirement in 1990....
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On ignorance, knowledge and health
In the age of alternative facts, WikiLeaks and the routine denigration of expertise, knowledge and ignorance have become highly politicised. Of course, knowledge has always been political: and nowhere is this more evident than in health and health care. Historically,...
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A Question of Sport?
Exercise is good for you. Exercise regularly and eat well and you reduce the risks of a catalogue of long term health conditions including obesity, diabetes and mental health problems such as depression. The message has been absorbed; millions of...
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You can’t wear a bag on your head: air pollution
Air pollution is often in the news as pollution episodes are reported in major cities in China and India. In London too, it is in the sights of the new(ish) mayor, who is calling for extra charges on polluting vehicles...
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The Rise of the Nasty Women
Each year I teach a lecture on gender and health to my third-year students. Alongside ideas of gender roles and norms, gendered power relations and the move from a binary to a spectrum understanding of gender, I introduce the idea...
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The Pain in Spain
Access to healthcare is a major post-referendum concern for millions of Europeans – but when you contemplate the details, you can see why most Brexiteers would rather not talk about it….. An amicable or “soft” divorce between Britain and Europe...
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The real crisis in the NHS is democratic
The decision by the British Red Cross to suggest that the NHS was experiencing a ‘humanitarian crisis’ predictably instigated a public debate as to exactly what the terms of reference were for an event to be considered a humanitarian crisis...
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Mind the Gap: On John Berger, mystification and the NHS
A couple of events this past week have put me in mind of some of the insights from John Berger’s classic text ‘Ways of Seeing’. In an age of ‘post-truth politics’, the observations and comments in this 45-year-old book seem...
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Welfare with conditions can promote social divisions
The UK benefits system is going through its biggest reform in 60 years. The revised system relies more heavily on welfare with conditions – that is to say, benefits allocated on the basis of assessments of individual financial or physical...
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Highlights of 2016
Dear Readers, Thanks for reading our posts and for following us on twitter. Also thanks to the many guest authors who have blogged for us over the last year. We hope you all have a merry break over Christmas and...
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Three Weeks in June and One Night in November: Brexit and Trump
The year 2016, with both Brexit and the election of Trump, has been extraordinarily bleak. In June, following a nasty campaign, peppered with a barely concealed racist venom, Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU. Then in November, after an...
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Gig-Economy: Gig-Health?