Neoliberal Health Organizing ─ Communication, Meaning, and Politics

Mohan J Dutta closely interrogates the communicative forms and practices that have been central to the establishment of neoliberal governance. In particular, he examines cultural discourses of health in relationship to the market and the health implications of these cultural discourses. Using examples from around the world, he explores the roles of public-private partnerships, NGOs, militaries, and new technologies in reinforcing the link between market and health. Identifying the taken-for-granted assumptions that constitute the foundations of global neoliberal organizing, he offers an alternative strategy for a grassroots-driven participatory form of global organizing of health. This inventive theoretical volume speaks to those in critical communication, in health research, in social policy, and in contemporary political economy studies.

Mohan J. Dutta is Professor and Head of the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore. He is also joint professor in the Interactive Digital Media Institute at the National University of Singapore and Adjunct Professor of Communication at the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. Dutta is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation at the National University of Singapore. He is one of the most prolific scholars in health communication, author of over 150 journal articles and book chapters and author or editor of six books. He was recognized in 2006 as the Lewis Donohew Outstanding Scholar in Health Communication.