Much is made of the persistent structures of inequality that determine the production and distribution of goods and services across the world, but less is known about the inequalities of global ...academic knowledge production, and even a smaller amount about the nature of the publication industry upon which this production process depends. Reflecting on an international study of academic publishing that has been framed within the lens of Southern theory, this article explores some of the issues facing those who work and publish in the global South, and offers an analysis of several of the mechanisms that assist to maintain the inequalities of the knowledge system. The focus then moves to an examination of some recent developments in academic publishing which challenge the dominance of the global North: the building of alternative transnational circuits of publishing that provide effective pathways for the distribution of academic knowledge from ‘inside the global South’.
Choice is an imperative for patients in the Australian healthcare system. The complexity of this healthcare ‘maze’, however, means that successfully navigating and making choices depends not only on ...the decisions of patients, but also other key players in the healthcare sector. Utilising Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus and field, we analyse the role of gatekeepers (i.e., those who control access to resources, services and knowledge) in shaping patients' experiences of healthcare, and producing opportunities to enable or constrain their choices. Indepth interviews were conducted with 41 gatekeepers (GPs, specialists, nurses, hospital administrators and policymakers), exploring how they acquire and use knowledge within the healthcare system. Our findings reveal a hierarchy of knowledges and power within the healthcare field which determines the forms of knowledge that are legitimate and can operate as capital within this complex and dynamic arena. As a consequence, forms of knowledge which can operate as capital, are unequally distributed and strategically controlled, ensuring democratic 'reform' remains difficult and 'choices' limited to those beneficial to private medicine.
•The healthcare field is biomedically structured and commodified.•Gatekeepers are differentially positioned within the Bourdieusian field.•Gatekeepers struggle over the definition of health.•Private sector gatekeepers control healthcare knowledge.•Inadequate knowledge prohibits effective reform of the healthcare system.
There has been a renewal of interest in the writing of national histories of sociology, with dozens of histories recently published in both the global North and South. Despite this, there has been a ...dearth of discussion about the methods and methodologies appropriate to such a task. Indeed, few histories of sociology, and fewer still national histories of sociology, explicitly address methodology. In this study, we review the literature on histories of sociology from a variety of countries, focusing on how the authors have approached the writing of history, and their implicit use of methods and methodologies. We suggest the use of a content analysis as an additional, though perhaps unusual, method of historiography, and apply this in the case of an Australian history of sociology. Our content analysis reveals both similarities and differences in the Australian approach, indicating the impact of settler-colonialism on Australian sociology and its historiography.
The paper reports on an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with staff from four Australian universities. These universities are shown to be undergoing significant social change as ...processes of marketisation impact on the everyday practices of academic workers. The universities are analysed as sites of contestation between the new professional managers and the established academic profession over the control of the conditions of work, the production of expert knowledge and the worksite itself. The theory of academic capitalism is examined, and the relevance of Bourdieu's work for the analysis of a university sector in a context of marketisation is assessed. Bourdieu's interlinked concepts of capital, habitus and the field are employed to investigate the nature of the contestation, revealing a dynamic process in which academics innovatively respond to threats to reduce their autonomy, to increased levels of surveillance and other constraints on practice. In addition, the study illustrates the processes through which actors within the sector, through acts of both conformity and resistance, contribute collectively to the growth of academic capitalism in the neoliberal university.
The relationships between disciplines and the institutions within which they are situated is a fertile area for researching the shaping of sociological knowledge. Applying theoretical insights from ...the sociology of knowledge, this article draws on an empirical study of research publications in the sociology of health and medicine to show which institutions in the Australian context are most likely to use sociological theory. When the institutions are positioned within the global university ranking system, an inverse association between sociological theory and the relative wealth and prestige of the originating institution becomes evident. Some of the implications of this finding are discussed with reference to the on-going viability of disciplines.
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This book is a study of disciplines and their specialities. It poses sociological questions about the formation of intellectual fields and their social relations, and offers an in-depth, ...historical study of one of the largest specialities of the discipline of sociology - the sociology of health and medicine - across three countries: the United States of America, Britain and Australia. Employing a radical new theory of disciplines, this book reveals unexpected connections between the ideas of sociologists and the context they work within. It answers questions about where they work, who they cite and collaborate with, and highlights distinct differences in the practice of sociology from one country to the next. In doing so, this book offers evidence of the effects of sweeping changes to the university sector and the global publishing industry on the working lives of sociologists, not least the impact of commercial research sponsorship on the knowledge they produce.
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This book studies the sociology of health and medicine across three different countries, the USA, UK and Australia, examining the nature of disciplines and their specialties and posing sociological questions about the formation of intellectual fields and their social relations.
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FRAN COLLYER Sociologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, National Convenor of the Health Section of The Australian Sociological Association, a member of the Health Governance Network, and former editor of the Health Sociology Review . She has previously published Public Enterprise Divestment: Australian Case Studies .
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This book studies the sociology of health and medicine across three different countries, examining the nature of disciplines and their specialities
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List of Illustrations Theoretical Frameworks and Beginnings Past and Present: Three National Sociologies of Health and Medicine Disciplines, Professions and Specialities The Study and its Methods National Trends in the Sociology of Health and Medicine Since 1990 Old Roads and New Pathways: Reflections, Conclusions and a Way Forward End Notes References Index and Glossary
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" Mapping the Sociology of Health and Medicine is unique and fascinating and highly recommended." - Stephanie Doris Short, Health Sociology Review
http://hsr.e-contentmanagement.com/book-reviews/review/1251/mapping-the-sociology-of-health-and-medicine
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Comparative analysis of the sociology of health and medicine across the US, UK and Australia First comprehensive analysis of the fields of health and medical sociology Examines the history of health sociology through the institutionalization of the field, tracing the development of research centres, departments, professional associations, journals and organizations
Debates about the state of Australian sociology have raged for as long as sociology has existed in Australia. Concerns about the discipline's future may be inevitable for a critical, reflexive ...discipline, but to those entering the discipline, it is neither instructive nor productive to be subjected to lingering disciplinary anxieties. After more than fifty years, it is time to take stock of the differing visions of sociology, and examine the arguments about the health, or otherwise, of Australian sociology. To advance this debate, we consider the signs and benchmarks of a 'successful' sociology as expressed in The Australian Sociological Association magazine, NEXUS, and key writings from Australian sociologists. We suggest that much of the disagreement over the status of sociology derives from the way 'disciplines' and 'success' are defined. Regarding sociology to be an heterogeneous, multi-modal, social institution and practice, we propose a way forward in our efforts to represent ourselves.
The production of sociological knowledge in Australian universities is explored through an empirical study of research papers published in a selection of academic outlets between 1960 and 2011. ...Drawing on theories concerning scholarly practices, institutional formation and the sociology of knowledge, questions are posed about the factors that shape and structure the production of sociological knowledge about health and medicine. The concept of intellectual schools is examined, with evidence sought for the presence of these 'knowledge networks' in the Australian context. The study suggests the formation and maintenance of schools are subject to structural factors within the university sector, specifically the relative wealth and prestige of the university and the dictates of the higher education market.
The promotion of choice is a common theme in both policy discourses and commercial marketing claims about healthcare. However, within the multiple potential pathways of the healthcare ‘maze’, how do ...healthcare ‘consumers’ or patients understand and experience choice? What is meant by ‘choice’ in the policy context, and, importantly from a sociological perspective, how are such choices socially produced and structured? In this theoretical article, the authors consider the interplay of Bourdieu’s three key, interlinked concepts – capital, habitus and field – in the structuring of healthcare choice. These are offered as an alternative to rational choice theory, where ‘choice’ is regarded uncritically as a fundamental ‘good’ and able to provide a solution to the problems of the healthcare system. The authors argue that sociological analyses of healthcare choice must take greater account of the ‘field’ in which choices are made in order to better explain the structuring of choice.
This paper offers a study of the specialist field of the sociology of health and medicine, and examines its institutional development in Australia. A thesis is developed about the relationship ...between the field and the parent discipline of sociology. The formation of the discipline and the specialist field are proposed to have occurred in stages: the formative years, a period of inter-disciplinarity and collaboration, a stage of intensification and organisation, the years of institutional growth and specialisation, the decade of consolidation and fragmentation, and, its most recent phase, a time of 'new' internationalisation. Moreover, the institutionalisation of the sociology of health and medicine has closely followed the developmental trajectory of its parent discipline, even though its disciplinary boundaries have been, and continue to be, less rigid.
