The critical (micro)political economy of health: A more-than-human approach

Abstract

The critical political economy of health offers different explanations for the social causes of health and the social factors determining the distribution of these causes. However, the relational, post-anthropocentric and monist ontology of the new materialisms overcomes this complexity, while retaining a critical focus. In this perspective, the social, economic and political relations of capitalism act upon bodies and other matter in everyday events, rather than as ‘social structures’. Using a conceptual toolkit of ‘affect’, ‘assemblage’, ‘capacity’ and ‘micropolitics’, the paper asks the question: ‘what does capitalism do?’ The re-analysis of the social and economic relations of capitalism in terms of a production-assemblage and a market-assemblage reveals not only the workings of capitalist accumulation, but also how previously-unremarked more-than-human affects in these assemblages simultaneously produce uncertainty, waste and inequalities. This micropolitical economy of health is illustrated with examples from recent research, including a critical assessment of health inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

One Health: The Psychology of Human-Nature Relationships for Planetary and Human Wellbeing - Volume II

“…One of the key models considered is Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory model where micro-meso-macro settings influence the development of a person (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Fox's ethics and the built environment (Fox, 2000) provides a macro framework that incorporates five capitals of natural, human, social, economic and built and numerous meso theories and models as well, highlighting the vast range of approaches that individuals have with (predominantly) residential landscapes. Situated within ethics and the built environment is the selfdetermination theory (SDT; Deci and Ryan, 1985), explaining motivations based on autonomy, competence and relatedness with extrinsic and intrinsic outcomes.…”