Sustainable Sexual Health: Analysing the Implementation of the SDGs

This book provides a textual analysis of the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in health care.

Using sexual health as a case study, the authors apply Foucault’s notions of biopower and biopolitics to discuss the power struggle between local needs and wants and universal ambitions embedded in the SDG ideology. Reproductive and sexual health are settings where health policy, religious and cultural norms, and gender policy meet personal and moral standards. As such, tensions, dilemmas, and conflicts are powerfully demonstrated in this interdisciplinary field of public health. Tensions, dilemmas and conflicts are particularly visible in reproductive and sexual health settings, where health policy meets personal or moral standards, gender policy, and religious and cultural norms.

This book will be valuable supplementary material for graduate students and academics wishing to enhance their knowledge in the fields of global health, sexual health, reproductive health and rights, and cultural studies. The book will also be of interest to professionals and students within the disciplines of medical sociology, medical anthropology, sustainability studies, gender and sexuality studies, and public health.

Tony Sandset is a research fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, where he received his PhD in cultural history. His current research focuses on knowledge translation within the field of HIV care and prevention. Specifically, his focus is on how medical knowledge from randomized controlled trials is mediated, how evidence is generated in HIV prevention and how new medical technologies informs subjectivities, desire, and sexuality. Another of his research areas pertains to the intersection between race, gender, class and HIV care and prevention. Relating race, class and gender to how medical knowledge is disseminated and translated from research to clinical and community usage is of particular interest here.

Eivind Engebretsen is a full professor of interdisciplinary health science (with emphasis on the philosophy of science) at the University of Oslo (UoO). He is currently the Vice-Dean for Postgraduate Studies at the Faculty of Medicine. In his research, Engebretsen has pioneered new approaches to the study of the interfaces of political ideologies (including SDGs) and knowledge production in health care, drawing on political philosophy and discourse analysis. His work has been awarded with a fellowship from the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He is Founding Chair of the Faculty of Medicine’s Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Healthcare Education.

Kristin Heggen is a professor in health sciences, University of Oslo. From 2011-2018, she served as Dean of Education at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. Heggen has expertise in the humanities, social sciences, and educational research. Her research interests include ethical issues and power dynamics, issues concerning knowledge production in health care, knowledge transfer between academic and clinical settings, and education of health professionals. She is currently Director of the Faculty of Medicine’s Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Healthcare Education.