Health matters, in all sorts of ways! But what is health? Where does it start? Where does it end? What is its opposite? What affects how we understand and/or experience it? Utilising a range of frameworks of critical psychology, including gendered, Indigenous and intersectional frameworks, this course examines ways we can theorise, understand, interrogate and promote health for individuals, communities and societies.
This graduate level course (part of the offerings within the BA(Hons), BSc(Hons) and PGDip (Arts/Science) programme) is designed for those who want to engaged with critical reflexive thinking and learning about health and wellbeing, within a social justice framework; for students who are eager to ask questions of knowledge and society, and of themselves. The teaching and learning in this class is inspired by theories and practice designed to unsettle, disrupt and challenge the status quo (e.g., critical and feminist pedagogies; pedagogy of discomfort). What does this mean for learning and the classroom? It means knowledge and learning are framed as political - unable to be removed from the structures of wider society. It means you will almost certainly be discomforted, and you will be asked to use that as a learning tool for critically engaging. It means that you will be asked to reflect on/interrogate the positions you learn and see from, and the ways these may shape your understandings. It means you will be asked to be open to hearing and engaging with knowledge from different positions, and to reflect on the extent to which frameworks work for and against social justice. It means there are no single answers and we won't be dealing with the comfortable space of facts.