My Reaction to Sharrock and ledema

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I would like to congratulate and thank Sharrock and ledema for undertaking the analysis and writing the paper examining the philosophical underpinnings of the eight reviews of “favourite resources” published in Health Promotion and Education Online. Although I was a bit surprised to find such a critical analysis of what I had interpreted to be a fairly straightforward assignment, I think they have done us a great favour in raising the understanding of what we produced to a higher level than originally intended thereby engendering the “reflexivization” (Sharrock and ledema, p.12) that we require as people interested in and working in health promotion.

Their paper has certainly led me to “reflexivy” about my own contribution to the series of reviews. In doing so, as did Larry Green, I have to admit to being guilty of the thinking that they have accused me of, although I am definitely not guilty of the quotation that they attributed to me rather than to Jan Ritchie (Sharrock and ledema, p. 7). In my defence, as the other reviewers and Sharrock and ledema themselves, I am a product of my professional and personal experiences. So it is probably not surprising that I should make “linear-causal” assumptions such as the value of “logical thinking and analysis” which I would attribute in part to my training in sociology during the 60’s when “logical positivism” was the dominant paradigm, and to my experience in government in the 70’s and 80’s where the value of logical analysis was stressed, particularly in relation to policy discussions. Similarly, my views on “empowerment” and “control” developed out of my exposure to thinking about health promotion in the 80’s and 90’s and the book that I wrote with John Raeburn (Raeburn and Rootman, 1998).

I have to admit that it has crossed my mind from time to time that there were some inherent contradictions in these concepts, and I certainly am able to see that this is the case more clearly now that I have had the benefit of reading Sharrock and ledema’s critique. However, I am uncertain about what I can do about it at this point in my career other than “reflexivication”. Hopefully, new recruits such as Sharrock and ledema can move the field of health promotion from “reflexivization to action”.

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