Bøger i Gesundheit, Kommunikation und Gesellschaft serien

In health and medicine, the imagination of what the future holds is an essential element in propelling people into action. This holds true not only at the level of individuals and their everyday activities and more extended live plans, but also for institutionalized practices that unfold within particular socio-political ecologies. Hope and uncertainty are essential affective and knowledge-related modalities of such imagination. This volume brings together contributions from medical anthropologists addressing this within various medical spheres including the pragmatics of hope and uncertainty, the techno-sphere, health management as well as individual and socially distributed emotions.

While it has become fashionable in the arena of international health to think about health systems, the theoretical underpinning of Niklas Luhmann's vast and productive theory has been given too little consideration in the field. It is rich in concepts that can facilitate a fuller understanding of what health systems are. João Costa applies these concepts and shows the analytical possibilities they open up. He argues concisely how Luhmann's Social Systems Theory offers an integrated theoretical body as well as a consistent articulation of concepts that can lay the groundwork for a vastly improved health systems thinking.