XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 13-19, 2014)

July 13 - 19, 2014

259

Sociology of Diagnosis Session

RC15 Sociology of Health (host committee)

Language: English

While diagnosis is important in identifying and curing disease, it also has a strong social impact. Diagnosis can be a source of anxiety or of relief, of hope or of despair. It structures the experience of health and illness, deciding what counts as normal, defining who is responsible for what disorders, providing frameworks for communication and structuring relationships. It presents a point around which tensions may develop, and interests collide. This session will focus on the sociology of diagnosis. It will adumbrate diagnosis as both category and process and will discuss the variable consequences of diagnoses on the experiences of health and illness. This session will explore the classificatory process of diagnosis, focusing on how diagnosis plays a role in distinguishing lay from professional, sick from bad, health from illness. It will also reflect on diagnosis as a source of power, resources, and subversion. And finally, papers in this session will analyse the impact of diagnosis on health outcomes and social outcomes. Preference will be given to papers which engage with diagnosis at metaanalytic level, that is to say, which, even while focusing on a specific diagnosis, or a specific aspect of the diagnostic process, relate to the structural function of diagnosis at a more general level.