I remain in a state of self-doubt about ‘what next’. It is not that I am not writing, though blogging has given way to more formal publication. My Sociology, Health and the Fractured Society is due out in paperback later this month (May, 2019), and my manuscript for A Sociology of Shame and Blame is now with the publisher, and due out, hopefully, around August of 2019. Plus, I have a chapter commenting on Labour’s manifesto commitments in relation to the NHS and health more generally coming out in a book edited by David Scott from the IOE, and due out in July, 2019; and there are journal articles too, on Marx, Bhaskar and the possibility of a transformative sociology; dimensions of vulnerability; and my particular take on health inequalities. So I’ve stayed busy. I also have a few thoughts intruding into the near-vacuum between my ears.
Two ideas for books press on me. The first is an obvious one, to me at least. Under a title something like Social Theory for Health, this would comprise portrait sketches of particular social theorists and critical exegeses and assessments of the actual and potential applicability of their contributions to studies of health and sickness. It would cover some 30 theorists and would include some ‘surprises’ in the form of radical contemporary thinkers. It would differ from Fran Collyer’s Palgrave collection in telling respects: (a) as a single author there would be stylistic continuity and I would be able to address select themes throughout the volume (maybe, theories of agency, culture and structure); (b) I would include a number of thinkers – philosophers in particular – yet to impact on health sociology; and (c) it would have to be marketed as a large but accessible paperback. Having taught both social theory and the sociology of health and health care for 40+ years, as well as being a founding editor of the journal ‘Social Theory and Health’ (which first saw the light of day in 2003), I think I’d be ideally placed to deliver on such a proposal. Well, that’s an option.
In the last day or two a further concept has made itself available. The title would be something like The Sociology of Health and Health Care in the UK: A Personal Account. Ok, I admit I have always opted for clear and straightforward titles over catchy ones, probably to the despair of publishers, but there you go! I don’t do marketing. Again, I would need to separate any such tome from Fran Collyer’s comparative study of the institutional emergence and consolidation of medical sociology worldwide. Does she always get there first? But once more I anticipate a different text. I entered the world of medical sociology in the early 1970s under the watchful eyes of Margot Jefferys and George Brown in what was then Bedford College of the University of London. They were pioneers; but I was familiar early on with the context in which they, together with the likes of Raymond Illsley and Meg Stacey, innovated. I knew these innovators, plus the likes of Ann Cartwright and Donald Patrick, and I met pivotal visiting academics like Elliot Freidson (I have since met many other influential characters of course). I also straddled two academic worlds, that of sociology and that of the (very) applied sociology found in medical schools. In fact I tried to build bridges between the two. So, again, a paperback oriented to colleagues and students within and without the UK which: (a) traced the whys and wherefores of medical sociology’s origins and development in the UK (and, necessarily because of the degree of cross-fertilisation, elsewhere); (b) incorporated a sociological account of the pluses and minuses of its whys and wherefores; (c) provided a novel examination of teaching the sociology of medicine in medicine; and (d) included vivid personal reflections on the inputs and accomplishments of predecessors and consociates. We’ll see.