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Health, Science, & Knowledge

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Health, Science, & Knowledge

Sociology of Health, Science, and Knowledge examines how health and illness are defined, the social dynamics of medical institutions and scientific expertise, and health social movements that challenge dominant ways of knowing and dominant medical practices. This area also explores the diverse social dimensions that explain the unequal distribution of health and illness across societies, including how people access or face barriers to healthcare. Work in this area includes domestic, comparative and global perspectives.

Who studies health, science, and knowledge? Heading link

A selection of faculty publications on health, science, and knowledge Heading link

Decoteau, Claire Laurier. 2021. The Western Disease: Contesting Autism in the Somali Diaspora. University of Chicago Press. 

Decoteau, Claire Laurier. 2013. Ancestors and Antiretrovirals: The Biopolitics of HIV/AIDS in Post-Apartheid South Africa. University of Chicago Press. 

Vasquez, E.E., Perez-Brumer, A.G., Parker, R. (Eds.) (2020) Social Inequities and Contemporary Struggles for Collective Health in Latin America. Abingdon: Routledge.

Vasquez, E.E. & García Deister, V. (2019). Mexican Samples, Latino DNA: The trajectory of a national genome in transnational science. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. 5[Sl]: 107-134.

Recent graduate seminars on Health, Science, & Knowledge Heading link

Sociology of the Body (Soc 520) 

Medical Sociology (SOC 451)