Embodied contradictions, structural power: Patient organizers in the movement for global health justice
We, the authors, find hope in the fights waged by our fellow patient-organizers. Patient organizers are people living with disease, and those who stand in solidarity with them, who choose to build organizing campaigns and power within a broader constituency to win shared goals. They are central in driving what sociologists have called embodied health movements.
We find it in the embodied contradictions represented by patient organizers around the world who know what’s at stake and demand more; the true subject experts who recognize the unique challenges they and their communities face. Hope springs from the network of patient-organizers who are actively reframing non-communicable diseases and injuries (NCDIs) among the poorest billion people and who are launching local social movement organizations focused on the profound gaps in care and services available to people living with severe noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).