The transformative potential of health as a commons

Abstract

Italy was a participating country in the People’s Health Movement multi-centred action-research project (Civil Society Engagement for Health for All). The Italian team, a collective named Grup-pa, undertook several participatory action-research activities including, in a first phase, a mapping of groups active in fields linked to the social determination of health and health promotion, through individual and collective interviews. In a second phase, organising and facilitating three public workshops, structured around the exchange of practices, focused on key themes emerged from phase one.

A major construct originated from this work, centred around the co-construction of experiential knowledge on health as a commons, has been named ‘health commons practices’. The focus on practices is not merely strategic (producing synergies and alliances), but inherently political (conceiving participation as a value) and connected to health and staying healthy (as individuals; as a community).

The construct of ‘health commons practices’ is meant to make visible an area of ongoing transformations in new spaces created by movements and in more traditional actions in defense of existing public services, addressing health as a socio-political issue. In this essay, we sketch the reflection around six keywords that are central to it: commons, care, technology, efficacy, sustainability, institution.