The Excavating the Biosocial series has so far focused on birth cohorts as ethnographic object (Gibbon and Pentecost 2020). In this post, I explore the expansion of interest in the early life period, particularly for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) research, to include ‘the preconception period.’ Recently, interest in this period has produced new kinds of trial communities …
Author Archives: Michelle Pentecost
Introduction: Excavating and (re)creating the biosocial; birth cohorts as ethnographic object of inquiry and site of intervention
Longitudinal birth cohorts are increasingly recognised as important for understanding how biological, social and environmental processes interact over time and contribute to health inequalities. Birth cohorts have also become part of global assemblages of knowledge production, particularly in the field of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD, Gluckman et al. 2016), and act as important technologies of evidence …
Digital Food Activism – a book review
Tanja Schneider, Karin Eli, Catherine Dolan and Stanley Ulijaszek (eds.)
Routledge Series in Critical Food Studies, 2018, 234 pages
A Swiss academic scans the barcode on her plastic water bottle. The bottle touts itself as ‘Swiss mountain water’, but the app that decodes the barcode quickly dispels that image: the company is a subsidiary of …
Conference Report: The Humanization of Health Sciences through Innovation in Health Professions Education
Brocher Foundation, May 2016
Introduction
This three-day event took place at the Brocher Foundation Institute, Geneva, from May 17-20 2016, and was generously funded by a Brocher Foundation award. The organising team included Berna Gerber, Thomas Cousins, and Lizahn Cloete (Stellenbosch University), Megan Wainwright (University of Cape Town), Michelle Pentecost (University of Oxford), Ferdinand Mukumbang (University of the Western …
In The Journals – April Part II
Another set of great papers from the journals in April. Enjoy!
‘I knew before I was told’: Breaches, cues and clues in the diagnostic assemblage
Louise Locock, Sarah Nettleton, Susan Kirkpatrick, Sara Ryan and Sue Ziebland
Diagnosis can be both a ‘diagnostic moment’, but also a process over time. This paper uses secondary analysis of narrative …
In the Journals – April 2016 Part I
Welcome to the first stack of ‘In the Journals’ for April! It’s a bumper crop, so find a cosy corner and some coffee to comb through it all. Happy reading!
Is the 21st century the age of biomedicalization?
Eileen Moyer and Vinh-Kim Nguyen
(Excerpt from editorial )
The diverse contributions that make up this issue of MAT, …