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From DNA sequences stored on computer databases to archived forensic samples and biomedical records, bioinformation comes in many forms. Its unique provenance – the fact that it is 'mined' from the very fabric of the human body – makes it a mercurial resource; one that no one seemingly owns, but in which many have deeply vested interests. Who has the right to exploit and benefit from bioinformation? The individual or community from whom it was derived? The scientists and technicians who make its extraction both possible and meaningful or the commercial and political interests which fund this work? Who is excluded or even at risk from its commercialisation? And what threats and opportunit...
Health Geographies: A Critical Introduction explores health and biomedical topics from a range of critical geographic perspectives. Building on the field’s past engagement with social theory it extends the focus of health geography into new areas of enquiry. Introduces key topics in health geography through clear and engaging examples and case studies drawn from around the world Incorporates multi-disciplinary perspectives and approaches applied in the field of health geography Identifies both health and biomedical issues as a central area of concern for critically oriented health geographers Features material that is alert to questions of global scale and difference, and sensitive to the political and economic as well sociocultural aspects of health Provides extensive pedagogic materials within the text and guidance for further study
This text offers the first book-length introduction to more-than-human geography, exploring its key ideas, main debates, and future prospects. An opening chapter traces the origins and emergence of this field of enquiry and positions more-than-human geography as a response to a set of intellectual and political crises in Western thought and politics. It identifies key literatures and thinkers and reflects on the varying usages and meanings of the idea of the more-than-human. Three subsequent sections explore cross-cutting themes that draw together the disparate strands of more-than-human geography: examining new materialisms developed in the field, analysing knowledge practices and methodolo...
Crossing both disciplinary and geographical boundaries, this volume draws together a number of important contributions from acknowledged leaders in three respective fields: the trade in bodily commodities, biomedical tourism and migration of health care professionals. It explores and maps out the key characteristics of this emerging, although as yet poorly researched global trade, questioning how, where and why bodies cross borders, whether this exacerbates existing health inequalities and how these circulations impact on healthcare services. In addition the book invites comparisons of the ways in which body parts, patients and medical professionals cross national borders, elucidating common themes, concerns and issues.
In the wake of many decades of increasing centralization, localism has been making a decided comeback in recent years. This book explores the development of localism as a new mode of statecraft and its implications for the everyday practice of citizenship. Jane Wills highlights the importance of civic infrastructure to effective engagement of citizens in local decision making, looks at the development of community organizing, neighborhood planning, and community councils, and positions this turn to the local in relationship to the longer geopolitical history of the British state.
Emerging over the past ten years from a set of post-structuralist theoretical lineages, non-representational theories are having a major impact within Human Geography. Non-representational theorisation and research has opened up new sets of problematics around the body, practice and performativity and inspired new ways of doing and writing human geography that aim to engage with the taking-place of everyday life. Drawing together a range of innovative contributions from leading writers, this is the first book to provide an extensive and in-depth overview of non-representational theories and human geography. The work addresses the core themes of this still-developing field, demonstrates the implications of non-representational theories for many aspects of human geographic thought and practice, and highlights areas of emergent critical debate. The collection is structured around four thematic sections - Life, Representation, Ethics and Politics - which explore the varied relations between non-representational theories and contemporary human geography.
A new generation of archaeologists has thrown down a challenge to post-processual theory, arguing that characterizing material symbols as arbitrary overlooks the material character and significance of artifacts. This volume showcases the significant departure from previous symbolic approaches that is underway in the discipline. It brings together key scholars advancing a variety of cutting edge approaches, each emphasizing an understanding of artifacts and materials not in terms of symbols but relationally, as a set of associations that compose people’s understanding of the world. Authors draw on a diversity of intellectual sources and case studies, paving a dynamic road ahead for archaeology as a discipline and theoretical approaches to material culture.
There is virtually nowhere on earth that remains untouched by plastics and the situation presents a serious threat to our natural world. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the interventions most often put in place are consumer-led and market-based and only nominally capable of addressing the issue. As the problem worsens and neoliberal ideologies limit the world’s responses to this crisis, there is a growing need for legislative frameworks that attend to the complex social and ecological issues associated with plastics. The contributors to this volume bring expertise from across academic disciplines to illustrate how plastics are produced, consumed, and discarded and to find holistic an...
This original book explores the importance of geographical processes for policies and professional practices related to childhood and youth. Contributors from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds explore how concepts such as place, scale, mobility and boundary-making are important for policies and practices in diverse contexts. Chapters present both comprehensive cutting-edge academic research and critical reflections by practitioners working in diverse contexts, giving the volume wide appeal. The focus on the role of geographical processes in policies and professional practices that affect young people provides new, critical insights into contemporary issues and debates. The contributio...
Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases are a major global challenge. Focusing on the food and farming sector, and mobilising social theory as well as empirical enquiry, Pathological Lives investigates current approaches to biosecurity and ask how pathological lives can be successfully ‘regulated’ without making life more dangerous as a result. Uses empirical and social theoretical resources developed in the course of a 40-month research project entitled ‘Biosecurity borderlands’ Focuses on the food and farming sector, where the generation and subsequent transmission of disease has the ability to reach pandemic proportions Demonstrates the importance of a geographical and spatia...