Beyond health : essays on control, resistance and renewal

This study applies poststructuralist and postmodern ideas to issues of health and health care to provide a radical re-think of how health is to be understood. It offers a perspective in which health is seen as an affirmation of potential rather than a narrow biopsychosocial construct. The author develops his notion of archehealth, providing an account of a wide range of post-structuralist and postmodern theoretical perspectives and their relevance to the field of health. The book is divided into three sections; the first section explores issues of power and control in health settings; the second looks at resistance to such power and control; the final section addresses ways in which post-structuralist and postmodern approaches may be used as research methodology. In each chapter the author explains and applies a selection of theoretical perspectives. These include Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Deleuze, Guattari, Cixous, Haraway, Kristeva, Beck, Barthes, Tyler, Landow, Bauman, Cascardi, Baudrillard and Atkinson.