This dissertation discusses the history of the politics of abortion in Argentina from the standpoint of democratic constitutionalism. It describes the normative world in which a legal rule criminalizing women who interrupted their pregnancies emerged in 1921, and the slow process through which the rule was re-politicized. The dissertation makes a contribution to the theory of democratic constitutionalism, by highlighting its usefulness for comparative analyses because it is based on common and usual features of democratic societies. It also contributes to the history of abortion regulation in Argentina, by underscoring the life of the law outside courts. Based on social movement theory, the dissertation contributes to the literature that finds that individuals play a very meaningful role in processes of legal and constitutional change.

The issues surrounding health care and health care policy are of great concern to politicians and the public alike. Government efforts in restructuring medicare, the "jewel" of Canada's social safety net, also affects the medical profession. It has been argued that this once powerful and dominant profession is experiencing a decline in its powers and authority. Is this decline inevitable or can the medical profession adapt to government reforms in such way as to maintain and even strengthen its power base? This dissertation examines the themes of professional autonomy and professional resistance. The changing composition, and possibly the decline, of the medical profession's clinical, economic, and political autonomy, is analyzed through an historical case study of the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA). Minutes from the BCMA's Board of Directors and Executive, along with interviews with doctors active in BCMA politics, and a media review, are used to generate a portrait of the social forces influencing medical politics in British Columbia from 1964 to 1993 and of the BCMA's relations with the various provincial governments of that period. The negotiating strategies of the BCMA and the decisions behind these strategies are the focal point for an examination of professional resistance, an area neglected in sociology. The dissertation looks at the external and internal conflicts that impact on the resistance tactics of the BCMA and at the various successes and defeats the medical profession experiences in its bid to maintain professional autonomy. During the time period under study, government intervention becomes more frequent and invasive. The BCMA has the least success in protecting the political dimension of professional autonomy and most success in controlling aspects of clinical autonomy. The vast variety of resistance strategies at its disposal distinguishes it from labour groups and most other professions. Forced to accept measures it once fought against, the BCMA's efforts become focused on ensuring that reform measures are under the control of doctors (rather than government) to the greatest extent possible. Although the BCMA has lost aspects of professional autonomy, it remains one of the few professional organizations today that can force compromise from the state.

The issues surrounding health care and health care policy are of great concern to politicians and the public alike. Government efforts in restructuring medicare, the "jewel" of Canada's social safety net, also affects the medical profession. It has been argued that this once powerful and dominant profession is experiencing a decline in its powers and authority. Is this decline inevitable or can the medical profession adapt to government reforms in such way as to maintain and even strengthen its power base? This dissertation examines the themes of professional autonomy and professional resistance. The changing composition, and possibly the decline, of the medical profession's clinical, economic, and political autonomy, is analyzed through an historical case study of the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA). Minutes from the BCMA's Board of Directors and Executive, along with interviews with doctors active in BCMA politics, and a media review, are used to generate a portrait of the social forces influencing medical politics in British Columbia from 1964 to 1993 and of the BCMA's relations with the various provincial governments of that period. The negotiating strategies of the BCMA and the decisions behind these strategies are the focal point for an examination of professional resistance, an area neglected in sociology. The dissertation looks at the external and internal conflicts that impact on the resistance tactics of the BCMA and at the various successes and defeats the medical profession experiences in its bid to maintain professional autonomy. During the time period under study, government intervention becomes more frequent and invasive. The BCMA has the least success in protecting the political dimension of professional autonomy and most success in controlling aspects of clinical autonomy. The vast variety of resistance strategies at its disposal distinguishes it from labour groups and most other professions. Forced to accept measures it once fought against, the BCMA's efforts become focused on ensuring that reform measures are under the control of doctors (rather than government) to the greatest extent possible. Although the BCMA has lost aspects of professional autonomy, it remains one of the few professional organizations today that can force compromise from the state. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

[Truncated abstract] In March 2005, the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, a former colony and now overseas department of France, saw the first cases of what was to become a massive epidemic of the mosquito borne viral infection Chikungunya. More than 250,000 people, one third of the Island's population, were subject to high fevers, rash, and joint and muscle pains over the next 18 months, yet the public health authorities in metropolitan France were arguably slow to take the epidemic seriously. The research presented here explores attitudes underlying the management of the epidemic by examining both metropolitan and local representations of mosquito borne disease from historical, epidemiological and media perspectives. The research seeks to answer the general question Does colonial history continue to influence the representation and management of mosquito borne disease in Reunion? Three parallel approaches are taken to answering this question, using a common framework of tropicality (a Western discourse that exalts the temperate world over its tropical counterpart, and overlaps with colonialism and orientalism). ... Several factors are likely to have contributed to the persistence of tropicality in public health practice in Reunion: Othering as a universal phenomenon; the cost of administering interventions to combat tropical diseases in the remote environments of French overseas departments and territories; the denial of a serious public health risk as a cultural trait in Reunion; and the significant role of the colonies in forming and maintaining the French national identity. It has to be acknowledged that historically, tropicalism does appear to have played one positive role in the management of mosquito borne disease:

In this dissertation I examine the influence and impact of consumer politics in the first five years of the AIDS epidemic. Using historical methodologies and leveraging a range of archival materials alongside scholarly and journalistic accounts of the era, I argue that gay men and People with AIDS deployed critical medical consumerism in their earliest responses to the disease. The politics of People with AIDS challenged the normative understanding of the sick by the medical and public health professions that claimed authority to shape the response to the AIDS epidemic. In the context of AIDS, this authority was shared with the gay and lesbian organizations that responded to the epidemic on behalf of the gay and lesbian community. People with AIDS wanted more power in each of these encounters. Living with AIDS involved numerous complex networks of medical, clinical, and care service relationships. In the context of America’s for-profit healthcare and service system and given the social service orientation of community-based responses, they positioned themselves as consumers. I examine the influence and impact of critical medical consumerism in the founding of the earliest AIDS service organizations, the earliest writing by people with AIDS in New York City, the emergence of political organizing among People with AIDS and their allies and its impact on the closure of the New York City bathhouses, the creation of community-based clinical research organizations and the founding of the well-known direct-action group, ACT UP. Critical medical consumerism appeared both as a way of generating and sharing information among People with AIDS, and a language of critique by People AIDS of the community and government responses to the epidemic. Through the lens of consumer politics, I also reexamine well historicized moments in this history, providing a more complex history to a founding document in the politics of AIDS, The Denver Principles. In this dissertation, I conclude that consumer politics is an essential political, social, and cultural lens through which People with AIDS understood the epidemic, though it is not without its limits. In the final chapter, I examine possibilities of future research in this field and the limitations of consumer politics for both the historical actor who deployed it, and for historians who examine this period of history.

A higher infant mortality rate and shorter life expectancy, coupled with a high prevalence of a variety of diseases commonly associated with malnutrition, are usually a reflection of the social conditions of poverty in a society. By arguing that apartheid formed the basis of inequality and therefore the main underlying cause of an unacceptable burden of the diseases of poverty among black South Africans, this thesis, Poverty, Health and Disease in the Era of High Apartheid: South Africa, 1948-1976, locates these health problems within their social, economic and political context. It further argues that if health and disease are measures of the effectiveness with which human beings, using the available biological and cultural resources, adapt to their environment, then this relationship underpins the convergence of medical and cultural interests. Under the impact of modern technology and society's dependence upon it, profound cultural changes have taken place and issues of health and the etiology of disease are among the areas most affected by these changes. This thesis explains why, in a pluralistic medical setting, where only modern (scientific) medicine was recognised as legitimate medicine by the apartheid government, for the majority of black South Africans the advent of modern medicine was viewed not so much as displacing indigenous (African) medicine but as increasing the medical options available to them. It is therefore contended here that for most black South Africans, indigenous medicine has played a critical role; it has mitigated the impact of apartheid medicine. Since differences that people perceive in these two medical systems are crucial to the medical choices that they make at the onset of illness, this thesis argues that knowing and understanding the reasons for making such choices would not only have practical value for health authorities in their efforts to improve local, regional and national health service delivery, but would also contribute to a general understanding of human therapy-seeking behaviour in this age of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. / History / Thesis (D. Litt. et Phil. (History))

A higher infant mortality rate and shorter life expectancy, coupled with a high prevalence of a variety of diseases commonly associated with malnutrition, are usually a reflection of the social conditions of poverty in a society. By arguing that apartheid formed the basis of inequality and therefore the main underlying cause of an unacceptable burden of the diseases of poverty among black South Africans, this thesis, Poverty, Health and Disease in the Era of High Apartheid: South Africa, 1948-1976, locates these health problems within their social, economic and political context. It further argues that if health and disease are measures of the effectiveness with which human beings, using the available biological and cultural resources, adapt to their environment, then this relationship underpins the convergence of medical and cultural interests. Under the impact of modern technology and society's dependence upon it, profound cultural changes have taken place and issues of health and the etiology of disease are among the areas most affected by these changes. This thesis explains why, in a pluralistic medical setting, where only modern (scientific) medicine was recognised as legitimate medicine by the apartheid government, for the majority of black South Africans the advent of modern medicine was viewed not so much as displacing indigenous (African) medicine but as increasing the medical options available to them. It is therefore contended here that for most black South Africans, indigenous medicine has played a critical role; it has mitigated the impact of apartheid medicine. Since differences that people perceive in these two medical systems are crucial to the medical choices that they make at the onset of illness, this thesis argues that knowing and understanding the reasons for making such choices would not only have practical value for health authorities in their efforts to improve local, regional and national health service delivery, but would also contribute to a general understanding of human therapy-seeking behaviour in this age of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. / History / Thesis (D. Litt. et Phil. (History))