Description
In the face of mounting interest in global health approaches, the agenda of health researchers in international studies often remains policy oriented, investigating how health governance either succeeds or fails to provide ‘health’ to designated populations. Drawing from critical disability studies, this paper argues in favour of a critical global health agenda which sees health in relational terms. This conception challenges unspoken assumptions about ‘health’ as a universal good that can be shared amongst populations, instead seeking to understand how the health of some populations is achieved through the ‘sickening’ of others. To do so, this paper draws upon critical disability studies, particularly Jasbir Puar’s work on capacity/debility (2017), to argue that the capacitation of some bodies with ‘good health’ is achieved through the concurrent debilitation of social ‘others’. The paper draws upon UK lockdown regulations in regards to COVID-19, exploring how minoritised groups are debilitated through COVID-19 governance, reducing their capacity to avoid and survive COVID-19 infection. The paper therefore argues that the health governance therefore often serves to produce violent outcomes in the shape of (re)producing narratives around race and disability. This demonstrates that the concept of ‘health’ itself is enriched through an engagement with critical disability studies.
