posted on 2019-12-18, 12:02authored byJoanna McNulty
Medicalization has featured as a central theme within the medical
sociology literature since the 1970s, but has become contested in more
recent years. This contestation has manifested as a key sociological debate
concerning the extent to which medicalization should be understood as
either a consequence of medical imperialism or as a complex social
process involving other social actors. Drawing on the work of Conrad
(2005) concerning contemporary drivers of medicalization, the paper
argues that limiting our understanding of medicalization to a mere outcome
of medical imperialism reduces the utility of the concept of medicalization
in the sociological study of health and illness. An analysis of these
contemporary drivers guided by both Weberian and Foucauldian inspired
theories illuminates the complex social process by which medicalization
occurs in contemporary society.
History
Publication
Socheolas Limerick Student Journal of Sociology;6 (1)