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The COVID-19 crisis has transformed the highly specialized issue of what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. This book interrogates the assumption that evidence means the same thing to different constituencies and in different contexts. Rather than treating various practices of knowledge as rational or irrational in purely scientific terms, it explains the controversies surrounding COVID-19 by drawing on a theoretical framework that recognizes different types of rationality, and hence plural conceptualizations of evidence. Debates within and beyond the medical establishment on the efficacy of measures such as mandatory face masks are examined in detail, as are various degrees of hesitancy towards vaccines. The authors demonstrate that it is ultimately through narratives that knowledge about medical and other phenomena is communicated to others, enters the public space, and provokes discussion and disagreements. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
List of contents
1. Evidence in Times of Crisis; 2. Narrative Rationality and the Logic of Good Reasons; 3. Whose Evidence? What Rationality? The Face Mask Controversy; 4. Whose Lives? What Values? Herd Immunity, Lockdowns, and Social/Physical Distancing; 5. The Rational World Paradigm, the Narrative Paradigm and the Politics of Pharmaceutical Interventions; 6. Objectivist vs Praxial Knowledge: Towards a Model of Situated Epistemologies and Narrative Identification; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Eivind Engebretsen is Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. He is Circle U Chair of Global Health and Executive Chariman of the Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE).Mona Baker is Affiliate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. She is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University.
Summary
Explores differences in beliefs of what constitutes reliable scientific evidence during public health emergencies, including COVID-19. It stresses the need to assess evidence on the basis of narratives and values rather than on purely scientific criteria. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
