terms

Question 1

social facts

Answer 1

the objects of analysis of sociology; patterns of behavior (actions) and ideas (representations); they exist outside of the individual, have coercive power over individuals, and are objective and observable phenomena

Question 2

knowledge production

Answer 2

the way (scientific) knowledge is produced; social institutions, like education, family, religion, media, and scientific and medical establishments, play fundamental roles

Question 3

causality

Answer 3

refers to the idea that one event, behavior, or belief will result in the occurrence of another, subsequent event, behavior, or belief

Question 4

proximate cause

Answer 4

an event which is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result

Question 5

distal cause

Answer 5

patterns of events that are at a higher level of social organization and influence a particular outcome

Question 6

epistemology

Answer 6

the study of how we know. How did we figure out A causes B? sociological research into the production of knowledge about disease and the body

Question 7

ontology

Answer 7

the study of what is real what is nature of things. What is A anyway? What is B? What is a cause? sociological research into the social determinants of health and illness

Question 8

contextualizing risk factors

Answer 8

understanding why people come to be exposed to risk or protective factors and determine the social conditions under which individual risk factors are related to disease

Question 9

fundamental causes

Answer 9

causes that shape access to resources, affect multiple disease outcomes through multiple mechanisms, and persist even with highly sophisticated technological interventions

Question 10

social model of pathology

Answer 10

causes are localized to broader social structures,
organizations, neighborhoods, cities, states, cultures. social causes are system and enduring sources of harm. societies are ableist, making impairment and disease a burden for the individual

Question 11

social model of disability

Answer 11

it is society which disables physically impaired people. disability is something imposed on top of our impairments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society. disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society

Question 12

medical model of pathology

Answer 12

causes are typically localized to the body and the decisions of the individual. social risk factors are acknowledged, but often left outside of the realm of intervention. disabilities are seen as properties of the person that need to be fixed

Question 13

ableism

Answer 13

the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior

Question 14

impairment

Answer 14

physical limitation

Question 15

geneticization

Answer 15

the drift toward greater receptivity to genetic
explanation for an increasing variety of human
behaviors

Question 16

genetic othering

Answer 16

the reductive action of labeling and defining a person as belonging to a separate subordinate group on the basis of genetic variation. often by treating them like an object that is intrinsically different

Question 17

othering

Answer 17

categorizing a group of people according to perceived differences, such as ethnicity, skin colour, religion, gender or sexual orientation. identifying that group as inferior and using an “us vs. them” mentality to alienate the group

Question 18

the medical gaze

Answer 18

the unique objectifying and dissecting way of seeing bodies of modern medicine that enforces social control

Question 19

scientific motherhood

Answer 19

the increased role of medical and scientific expertise in mothering

Question 20

normalcy project

Answer 20

a regime of beliefs and practices, emanating from science and medicine, which are preoccupied with eradicating disability and which uphold an ideal of the typical body

Question 21

social construction

Answer 21

a complex concept or practice shared by a society or group, not arising from any natural or innate source but built on the assumptions upheld, usually tacitly, by its members

Question 22

cultures of activism

Answer 22

the publicly performed assembly of practices that are enacted, enunciated, emoted, and embodied by a protest

Question 23

co-optation

Answer 23

the process by which established institutions or authorities incorporate certain aspects of a social movement into their existing structure or ideology in order to neutralize or control its impact. this can involve adopting the language, symbols, or goals of the movement, often without genuinely addressing the underlying grievances or demands

Question 24

social construction of race and ethnicity

Answer 24

anti-essentialist argument meant to destabilize the false belief that human populations can be sorted into natural kinds; race is contextual, malleable, and unstable; explains how the meaning of ethnoracial categories have shaped society; normative claim opposing the use of essentialism to oppress groups

Question 25

racialization

Answer 25

a political process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such

Question 26

technological redlining

Answer 26

the creation and maintenance of tech practices, policies, pedagogies, and investment decisions that enforce class boundaries and discriminate against specific groups

Question 27

genetic ancestry

Answer 27

the subset of paths through the human family tree by which they have inherited DNA from specific ancestors; does not require putting an individual into categories of groups or populations

Question 28

medicalization

Answer 28

the expansion of medical jurisdiction to other spheres of society. defining a problem in medical terms or using a medical intervention to address it

Question 29

biomedicalization

Answer 29

the transformation of the targets of medicine and of
medicine itself through technoscientific means

Question 30

logics of classification

Answer 30

the cognitively embedded ways of lumping and splitting groups of people and the assumptions about what modes of human difference are salient

Question 31

genetic nationalism

Question 32

genomic sovereignty

Answer 32

the move by several governments to take strong protective ‘ownership’ of the DNA of their own populations

Question 33

imagined community

Answer 33

populations of individuals that—though they may never come into contact with the vast majority of the group’s other members—all self-identify under a shared community identity

Question 34

intersectionality

Answer 34

a framework for understanding how the multiple
dimensions of difference that make up a person’s
identity interact with each other and with the different
systems of privilege and disadvantage in society

Question 35

embodiment

Answer 35

a framework for examining the body and the social experience of inhabiting a body. a focus on the ways in which culture, institutional structures, and social inequality can come to reside within the body

Question 36

pink-washing

Answer 36

when industries use breast cancer pink to build goodwill, move product, and cover up their production of carcinogens; the strategy of promoting LGBT rights protections as evidence of liberalism and democracy, especially to distract from or legitimize violence against other countries or communities

Question 37

the state

Answer 37

a system of power and authority that claims the legitimate right to use force, composed of institutions (i.e., government, legal system, military, police) that regulates society within its territory

Question 38

eugenics

Answer 38

an ideological system of beliefs that aims to improve a human population or society by controlling reproduction and manipulating popular conceptions of ‘health’ and ‘fitness’

Question 39

medical apartheid

Answer 39

a political system in which certain groups of people are systematically denied access to medical care, treatment, or resources based on their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or other discriminatory factors

Question 40

necropolitics

Answer 40

a framework for understanding how political powers operate and maintain their sovereignty through the control of who lives and who dies. especially through the deployment of violence to subjugate populations through dispossession and marginalization

Question 41

excess death

Answer 41

the difference between the actual number of deaths and the number that would have been expected under normal conditions

Question 42

epistemic healthism

Answer 42

the preoccupation with personal health as a primary—often the primary—focus for the definition and achievement of well-being; a goal which is to be attained primarily through the modification of lifestyles, with or without therapeutic\ help; reinforces a set of neoliberal values surrounding one’s relationship to one’s body: productivity, self improvement, efficiency, etc; knowing for sure what must be done to achieve wellness

Question 43

wellness

Answer 43

an integrated method of functioning which is oriented toward maximizing the potential of which the individual is capable . . . requir[ing] that the individual maintain a continuum of balance and purposeful direction within the environment where he is functioning

Question 44

neoliberal individualism

Answer 44

focused on moving caretaking from the communal health system to the individual, and thus it is individual as a placement of responsibility rather than as a site of innovation or rights. It is anti-individual in its univocal endorsement of a quite homogeneous set of life choices, activities, attitudes, and even habitus

Question 45

scientific credibility

Answer 45

the capacity of claims makers to enroll supporters behind their claims, to legitimate their arguments as authoritative knowledge, and to present themselves as the sort of people who can give voice to science