Healthcare Activism: Markets, Morals, and the Collective Good - Hardcover

by Susi Geiger (Editor)

What is the role of activists and civil society in defining and defending the collective good in healthcare, especially in cases where that good seems to be heavily shaped by market dynamics? Presenting conceptual and empirical studies from a variety of healthcare contexts and theoretical perspectives, this book addresses this vital question by drawing together multidisciplinary scholarship from Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Organisation Studies, Marketing, Philosophy, and Public Health.

Healthcare has undergone three major changes over the past decades: the advent of personalized medicine, the marketization of public care systems, and the digitalization of healthcare services. This book maps these changes and illustrates the extent to which they are interlinked to produce a seemingly unstoppable move toward individualization in healthcare. The book also highlights the tensions and challenges arising from these interlinkages, and traces how activists react to these tensions to argue for and defend the common good. It thus sketches a multifaceted picture of healthcare activism in the 21st century as civil society responds to these dynamics at the crossroads of markets and morals, economic and social justifications, individual and collective, and digital and non-digital worlds. Crucially, it also highlights potential solutions for heightening patient voices and broadening participation in healthcare markets in a post Covid-19 world.

Author Biography

Susi Geiger, Full Professor of Marketing and Market Studies, University College Dublin

Susi Geiger is a Full Professor of Marketing and Market Studies in the College of Business, University College Dublin, and holder of a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant, 'MISFIRES and Market Innovation', which studies activism in health care markets. Her research focuses on how complex markets are organized, with specific interests in technology and health care markets in the context of social justice concerns. She has published numerous articles on these issues in journals such Organization Studies, Business & Society, Research Policy, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Marketing Theory. She also co-edited the volume Concerned Markets (Edward Elgar, 2014).