Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences, School of Health and Human Research, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK.
Health Equity and Inclusion Research Group, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Sociol Health Illn. 2021 Mar;43(3):779-795. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13265. Epub 2021 Mar 15.
The materialist thread within health sociology has observed a clear gradient linking inequalities in health with measures of social class and poverty. More recently, Bourdieu's approach to social class complemented the 'economic capital' of Marxist analysis with 'symbolic' capitals such as 'social' and 'cultural'. However, efforts to assess how symbolic capital interacts with health disparities reveal complex or contradictory effects. In this paper, we re-materialise the study of health and social position via a new materialist focus on the interactions between humans and non-human matter (NHM). We analyse empirical data to disclose the range of human/NHM interactions in daily life, and how these affect people's health status. These interactions establish physical, psychological and social opportunities and constraints on what human bodies can do, contributing to relative advantages and disadvantages. We argue for a revised materialist understanding of sociomaterial position as constituted by a 'thousand tiny dis/advantages', and suggest that health and wellbeing are inextricably linked to dis/advantage.
健康社会学中的唯物主义线索观察到，健康不平等与社会阶级和贫困的衡量标准之间存在明显的梯度关系。最近，布迪厄的社会阶级方法用“社会”和“文化”等“象征性”资本补充了马克思主义分析的“经济资本”。然而，评估象征性资本如何与健康差距相互作用的努力揭示了复杂或矛盾的影响。在本文中，我们通过关注人类与非人类物质（NHM）之间的相互作用，重新从新唯物主义的角度研究健康和社会地位。我们分析了经验数据，以揭示日常生活中人类/NHM 相互作用的范围，以及这些相互作用如何影响人们的健康状况。这些相互作用为人体能够做什么创造了身体、心理和社会机会和限制，从而导致相对优势和劣势。我们主张对社会物质地位进行修正后的唯物主义理解，即由“千丝万缕的不利/优势”构成，并认为健康和幸福与不利/优势密不可分。
