Making ‘Context’ Concrete: A Dialogical Approach to the Society–Health Relation

Abstract

To understand the role of context in constituting health is recognized as a key challenge facing contemporary health psychology. However, few models or theories are available which pinpoint the processes linking individual health with community or societal contexts. This article draws on dialogical and sociocultural psychological theory, to make context concrete by proposing the concepts of ‘mediating moments’ and ‘reflected mediating moments’. These concepts are further developed through their application to the empirical case of the constitution of condom use in sex-worker–client interactions in Calcutta. Interviews and group discussions with sex workers and other ‘red light area’ residents are interpreted to examine at what moments the societal phenomena of poverty and gender relations come to mediate condom use behaviour.