Health and Biomedical Research

Strand leader: Ginny Russell, Hannah Farrimond & Sam Wilkinson

Researchers in the Health and Biomedical Research strand have a wide range of interests relating primarily to the critical study of health and biomedical research.

Projects within this cluster make use of theoretical, philosophical and social scientific techniques to cast a critical lens on the current state of research in health (including mental health) and biomedicine. Much of this research is closely linked to policy, practice and the critical research in this cluster aims for just and equitable health outcomes in society.

Among the topics we explore include: the ways in which diagnostic categories, labels and practices have an impact on society; how institutional structures that may silence and distort the testimony service-users lead to various forms of epistemic injustice; the sub-optimal ways of conceptualising certain conditions, the way health knowledge is conceptualised and transmitted and remedial research via conceptual engineering.

The Health and Biomedical Research strand meets regularly via a reading group, scheduled here. Our research is primarily sociological, but also encompasses social psychology, science and technology studies, and human development – we embrace and explore interdisciplinarity.