Health‐related stigma

The concept of stigma, denoting relations of shame, has a long ancestry and has from the earliest times been associated with deviations from the 'normal', including, in various times and places, deviations from normative prescriptions of acceptable states of being for self and others. This paper dwells on modern social formations and offers conceptual and theoretical pointers towards a more convincing contemporary sociology of health-related stigma. It starts with an appreciation and critique of Goffman's benchmark sensitisation and traces his influence on the personal tragedy or deviance paradigm dominant in the medical sociology from the 1970s. To allow for the development of an argument, the focus here is…