‘Everyday health’, embodiment, and selfhood since 1950
What is the history of ‘everyday health’ in the postwar world, and where might we find it? This volume moves away from top-down histories of health and medicine that focus on states, medical professionals, and other experts. Instead, it centres the day-to-day lives of people in diverse contexts from 1950 to the present. Chapters explore how gender, class, ‘race’, sexuality, disability, and age mediated experiences of health and wellbeing in historical context. The volume foregrounds methodologies for writing bottom-up histories of health, subjectivity, and embodiment, offering insights applicable to scholars of times and places beyond those represented in the case studies presented here. Drawing together cutting-edge scholarship, the volume establishes and critically interrogates ‘everyday health’ as a crucial concept that will shape future histories of health and medicine.
Hannah Froom is an independent early career scholar.
Tracey Loughran is a Professor of History at the University of Essex.
Kate Mahoney is a Research Manager at Healthwatch Essex, and a Community Fellow at the University of Essex.
Daisy Payling is an Engagement Officer at Queen Mary University of London.
