Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Coveney, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Coveney, J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Health Education Research, Vol. 13, No. 3, 459-468, 1998
© 1998 Oxford University Press

other

The government and ethics of health promotion: the importance of Michel Foucault

J. Coveney

Department of Public Health, Flinders University of South Australia Bedford Park, South Australia 5042, Australia

A debate about the ethics of health promotion recently appeared in this journal. While the papers involved provided a number of new insights into this area, they appeared to stop short of many possibilities. In particular, the dismissal of the relevance of the work of Foucault in this area prevented another line of inquiry opening up. This paper provides a fuller explication of Foucault's relevance of ethics and health promotion. It draws attention to the way health promotion produces subjects, especially choosing subjects. Using nutrition promotion as an example, it highlights the way that various positions in health promotion—which on the surface appear to be at odds with each other—can in fact be seen to be part of the same project: that of producing self-regulating subjects. The paper concludes by stressing that health promotion provides an ethics, in a Foucauldian sense, by producing the means by which subjects assess their own desires, attitudes and conducts in relation to those set out by health promotion expertise.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 International Review for the Sociology of SportHome page
C. Fusco
`Healthification' and the Promises of Urban Space: A Textual Analysis of Place, Activity, Youth (PLAY-ing) in the City
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, March 1, 2007; 42(1): 43 - 63.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.