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"State of Health: Pleasure and Politics in Venezuelan Health Care under Chávez takes readers inside one of the most controversial regimes of the 21st century for an in-depth account of how poor people's lives changed when the state reorganized its health system. This lively and accessible ethnography looks at the pleasure people took in new features of government health care such as personalized doctors' visits, health activism, and therapeutic dancing. Based on extensive participant observation and interviews, this book shows that government health care in revolutionary Venezuela excited people because it provided more than medicine. Health programs empowered and affirmed poor people as valued members of society, making it clear that their lives mattered. This book explains the meanings of socialized medicine from the vantage point of historically marginalized Venezuelans, who made up the majority of the country's population. It offers a singularly unique account of daily life in Chávez's Venezuela. Although people's lives have changed dramatically since the Chávez era, this book provides lasting insights into how ordinary people experience radical moments of social and political change. State of Health signals a paradigm shift in the field of medical anthropology by establishing the value of studying pleasure with the same seriousness of purpose with which ethnographers study suffering. This book shows how paying more attention to the positive aspects of medicine could revolutionize our understanding of how health care gives meaning to people's lives"--Provided by publisher

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- One. Introduction -- Two. Moving Medicine Inside the Barrio -- Three. Clinical Intimacies as Macropolitics -- Four. Beyond Biomedicine -- Five. Pleasures of Participation -- Six. The Limits of Citizenship -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index

This article focuses on the spatial significance of health care access, analyzing how state health programs effected sociospatial transformations in poor urban neighborhoods in Caracas, Venezuela. Starting in 2003, the leftist state constructed a parallel public health system to shift biomedical care from hospital emergency rooms to small clinics in neighborhood settings, arguing that it would improve the quality and accessibility of medical care for the poor. The new national health program, Barrio Adentro (Inside the Neighborhood), explicitly reorganized public medicine according to the pragmatic and symbolic significance of place. This article, based on fifteen months of ethnographic research in central Caracas, focuses on the meanings of these new health spaces for patients. Patients viewed the placement of clinics – and doctors – in barrios and working-class neighborhoods not only as logistically necessary but also as a moral and political commitment on the part of doctors and on the part of the state that employed them. In a context of marked spatial segregation along class lines, the placement of doctors 'inside the neighborhood' was symbolically significant because it marked such communities as deserving of services and challenged longstanding divisions between marginalized and privileged social groups in Caracas.

Launched in 2003 by the leftist government of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela'sBarrio Adentro(Inside the Poor Neighborhood) health care program is deeply dependent on local community health workers to implement and administer clinics and various health initiatives. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2006 and 2009, this article analyzes the experiences ofBarrio Adentrocommunity health workers (promotores) in a working‐class neighborhood in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. My research reveals that community health workers understood their relationship to the state as fraught, but fundamentally collaborative. In contrast, they viewed local residents as the main threat to achieving their community health goals, based on perceptions that some residents were apathetic or politically opposed to the government's programs to promote social change. In situating this analysis in the broader social and historical context, I show how community health workers represent one of the most significant forms of state‐supported activism in a country that has radically expanded social and political participation for historically marginalized groups in the name of "21st century socialism." I argue that the state's antineoliberal discourse, substantial investment in public health care, and employment of Cuban doctors distinguish community health work inBarrio Adentrofrom the experiences of community health work in other areas of Latin America, where community participation has also been framed as a form of empowerment but often serves as a mechanism to devolve state responsibilities for health care onto local communities. In focusing on the broader social, political, and economic context that gives meaning toBarrio Adentroactivists, this analysis offers insights that may be applied to community health initiatives in other settings.

The heightened visibility of racial discrimination coupled with the repression of young people's civil and political rights during the COVID-19 pandemic is surfacing the need for human rights education (HRE) to address anti-racism more intentionally. HRE practitioners reflect on language, the limitations of celebrating diversity, and the need for critical consciousness and deliberative spaces in youth engagement programming to address lived injustices across communities. As children's rights researchers and practitioners, we consider the interdependence of the rights to participation and non-discrimination and the need to recalibrate youth programs to consider age alongside race and other aspects of identity. The shift to a critical and decolonial approach to HRE includes embracing intersectionality and reflexivity, actively bringing BIPOC youth to the centre of defining and cultivating racial justice engagement to catalyze systemic-level change. We identify reflection questions for institutions, programs, and practitioners to support this journey. ; Cet article aborde comment la visibilité accrue de la discrimination raciale et la répression des droits civils et politiques des jeunes pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 a poussé l'éducation aux droits humains (EDR) à lutter contre le racisme plus intentionnellement. Stimulés par la conscience accrue qu'ont les jeunes du racisme, leur appel au changement et les injustices vécues, les éducateurs en droits humains réfléchissent à leur langage, aux limites de la «célébration de la diversité» et aux différents espaces pour soutenir l'engagement des jeunes et renforcer l'inclusion. Comme chercheurs et éducateurs des droits de l'enfant, nous considérons que l'attention portée à l'âge a négligé l'interdépendance des droits à la participation et la non-discrimination. S'engager dans une EDR plus critique implique d'embrasser l'intersectionnalité et la réflexivité; d'amener activement les jeunes BIPOC au centre du partage d'information; de cultiver leur engagement pour la justice raciale pour catalyser un changement systémique.

The underrepresentation of women in senior positions continues to be a major challenge in higher education and most other industries. In Australia, the career trajectory for academic women stalls at a lower level than that of their male counterparts. Concern about this situation in one Australian university led to the design and delivery of a career progression program to support women's advancement from senior lecturer to associate professor. This study details the main features of the program, designed to facilitate women's transition from being leading academics to academic leaders through a focus on leadership and career progression. We report the participants' perceptions of its value based on survey data. We conclude that leadership development is difficult work and requires a supportive environment where risk-taking is encouraged, where frank and fearless feedback is provided, and where the individual is required to examine assumptions and biases and to assume a leadership identity.

Using Equitas' Speaking Rights Program as a best practice example, this article outlines the essential practices and conditions of a participatory approach to human rights education for youth, and explores how this approach effectively supports youth empowerment. The authors maintain that programs that use a participatory approach to human rights education are more likely to engage youth in actions for social change within their communities. They suggest that youth workers who are trained and well equipped to address issues that are on the minds of youth are critical in helping youth develop the skills and motivation to participate.