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Call for Papers

From Health Behaviours to Health Practices

Simon Cohn, editor

Sociology of Health & Illness Monograph 

The 20th Sociology of Health and Illness monograph will critically
examine the concept of 'health behaviours', which is increasingly
widespread in both health research and government policy. Whether
already an established focus for interventions as in the UK, or only yet
emergent, as in some other international settings, health behaviours are
presented as self-evident topics for investigation and action.  Derived
from psychology, the idea that human behaviour can be divided into
discrete, stable and measurable categories, and that such actions are
merely the result of individual agency and rational choice, is at odds
with most sociological approaches emphasising the relational nature of
social life. Further, given the complex and diverse ways in which people
make sense of issues relating to their health and body, it is often
striking just how few of these perspectives are ever acknowledged or
integrated into behavioural accounts. 

The monograph will assess the limitations of the concept of 'health
behaviours', including the widespread absence of any discussion of power
or conceptualisation of sociality. It will explore whether there are
different ways to problematise and conduct research into what people do
in relation to their health and their experience of illness. Through
both theoretical discussions and specific examples contributors should
propose approaches that resist an individualising tendency. Instead they
should put forward accounts that go some way to capture the complexities
associated both with conventional topics, such as diet, smoking and
alcohol consumption, as well as topics not normally conceived of as
'health behaviours', such as features of socialising with others,
housing conditions and employment circumstances, which  have a
significant influence on health and illness.

By examining a range of situations and case studies under the general
term of 'health practices', emphasis will be put on the emergent nature
of the actions and interactions of people in their social and physical
environment, thereby countering a model of a priori psychological states
typically assumed to be the key causal mechanisms to explain what people
do. 

As well as exploring conceptual issues, the volume aspires to describe
how the concept of health behaviour has enabled classic clinical
research designs and methods to be expanded into new areas of
investigation. By proposing alternatives to the construction of
behaviours as discrete and measurable variables, novel methodologies and
forms of evidence should also be accepted as means of assessing the
complexity of 'health practices' in context.

The monograph will appear both as a regular issue of the journal and in
book form. The planned publication date is February 2014. Potential
contributors should send an abstract of up to 600 words to
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>  by 31st
January 2012. Informal email enquiries to this address prior to
submission are welcome, as are suggestions for shorter contributions
that might, with the assistance of the editor, be collated with others
into more innovative submissions. Name and institutional affiliation of
author(s) should also be supplied, including full contact details. 

Proposals will be reviewed and potential authors notified by 31 March
2012. Those whose abstracts are short-listed will be invited to submit a
finished paper by 31 July 2012. All submissions will be refereed in the
usual way for Sociology of Health and Illness and should follow the
journal's style guidelines
(http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/shil_enhanced/submit.asp).  

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simon Cohn

Medical anthropologist

GPPCRU, Dept of Public Health & Primary Care

University of Cambridge

Cambridge CB2 0SR

 


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