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Networks, bodies and reformulating health knowledge: a response to Collyer and Garrett
Gillian Hatt
School of Social and Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University, Perth WA
Abstract
Both Catherine Garrett's article (1996), Fran Collyer's article (1996), and my own article (Hatt 1996) reflect a common pre-occupation with addressing the re-construction of medical knowledge. This interest is reflected in two significant themes. Firstly, Catherine Garrett talks of reconstructing health knowledge within the context of the development of knowledge of the self, through a discussion of the way in which metaphor is a basis for meaning and understanding. Secondly, Fran Collyer discusses the reconstruction of knowledge by focusing on a case-study dealing with the medical treatment of ulcer disease. She uses this case-study to illustrate some of the limitations associated with a social constructionist analysis of medical knowledge and practice. My own work embraces both of these interests - mainly, how the clinician reconstructs `official' medical knowledge in light of their own embodied experience, and the way in which knowledge plays a pivotal role in the construction of bodily identities.
Similarly, all three of the papers are keen to work in an inter-disciplinary framework. For example, Collyer's embrace of the science and technology literature (an interest which is also reflected in my work), and Garrett's use of the cognitive science and philosophy literature, particularly Mark Johnson's The Body in the Mind (1987) (which I have also found influential in my own research). Finally, each of the papers address the issue of the reconstruction of health knowledge by focusing on specific case studies. Catherine Garrett's major focus is on recovery from anorexia nervosa, for Fran Collyer, medical knowledge of ulcer disease, and for myself, the diagnosis and treatment of low blood pressure.
This article will address some of the common directions and theoretical interests which stem from a reading of the above articles, and their potential contribution to sociological analyses of health and illness. The main focus of the discussion will take up Fran Collyer's discussion of the difficulty of explaining creativity and innovation in medical knowledge, from a social constructionist perspective. Attention will also be draw here, to the actor-network theory approach, as popularised in sociological studies of science and technology. The discussion will conclude with a re-emphasis on the embodied nature of medical knowledge/practice, by re-stating some of the principles of my previous paper and referring to Catherine Garrett's similar emphasis on the body as a source of meaning.
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