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Category: Project

Description: Stigmatizing health narratives, along with the specter of plague, have historically been used by authorities to justify the suppression of civil unrest and liberties. European Jews, blamed for the bubonic plague, were scapegoated to manage class struggles in the late Middle Ages. Chinese ‘New World’ immigrants, blamed for tuberculosis in the 19th century, were scapegoated by authorities as sources of societal decay. The early 20th century witnessed ‘tramps’ blamed for smallpox, which distracted the populace from capitalist exploitation. Finally, since 2020 groupings of diverse ethnicities, religions, classes, and political affiliations, coalescing around scepticism about, or resistance to, official Covid-19 policies, have been blamed for prolonging the crisis. These narratives, unleashing hate and violence, are alike in that they require a dehumanized “other”, an enemy that cannot be tolerated and must be “civilized”, “educated”, “reformed”, and often disciplined, isolated, or eliminated, to “protect” or “save” humanity. This project examines health narratives and social control, broadly understood. It draws primarily from the medical sciences and sociological theory, in addition to theories of media analysis, communication, and public opinion, to examine how messaging from dominant institutions shapes attitudes, social behaviours, and public policies towards groups construed, based on any identifiable feature, as threats to the social order. The basic assumption is that public policy, and very especially public health policy, is informed by not only the medical and related sciences but also by societal expectations, dominant values, conflicts of interest, and the imperative to secure its own institutional reproduction. It is hoped that a critical examination of narratives of health that reaches beyond the boundaries of “acceptable debate” can promote better health, greater respect for human dignity, and a more democratic governance.