Margaret Stacey
the sociology of health and healing
pp. 262-272
in: Fran Collyer (ed), The Palgrave handbook of social theory in health, illness and medicine, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
Margaret (Meg) Stacey (1922–2004) played key roles in establishing sociology as a university-based discipline in Britain and in developing a sociology of medicine, health and illness as a distinct specialism. This chapter outlines her biography and career, during which she helped to consolidate a sociology of health and illness that attends to inequality of various forms, offers critical perspectives on orthodox medicine through a comparative approach and that is committed to theoretical and empirical development. Her interests in the gendered division of labour, her feminist commitment, and a concern to address suffering, are considered in assessing her influence on the discipline.