Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Big Pharma And Big Medicine In The Global Environment, Anne E. Figert, Susan E. Bell

Sociology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In previous work we argued that sociologists need to expand our thinking about pharmaceuticalization, the process of understanding and/or treating social, behavioral, or bodily conditions with pharmaceuticals. The majority of sociological scholarship has investigated pharmaceuticalization as a primarily Western process and conceptualized it in modern terms (Bell and Figert 2010, 2012a, 2012b). In our view, the work of anthropologists and science and technology studies (STS) scholars who decenter the West as the starting point for research opens up new avenues for understanding the global dynamics of pharmaceuticalization. We have also argued in favor of adopting a postmodern theoretical lens which …