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.

About the Author
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).

Reviews
The book is an essential read for any student or scholar interested in health-care activism, the shaping influence of neoliberalism and market thinking on health-care activism and the ways in which such dominant framings may be rethought. It provides a rich insight into the shapes and forms activism may take, while emphasising that we, as scholars of health-care activism, need to further broaden our focus beyond health-, economically-, and digitally literate activist groups. * Hadewych Honne, University of Edinburgh, Sociology of Health & Illness *
Contributing authors identify struggles around intellectual property rights, medicines, and wars on various diseases, also addressing activism in the "shout loudest" social media culture. Some nuanced and useful case studies are included, e.g., an account of the digitization of Danish health care, or analysis of breast cancer social movement narratives. The book supports health care activism unabashedly. * C. Wankel, CHOICE *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198865223
Author Susi Geiger
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 564g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 164mm * 21mm