Turning Interconnections into Relations: An Introduction

The L’Altro Diritto Research Unit on Everyday Bioethics and Ethics of Science (RUEBES) has invited scholars to submit original contributions with the aim to explore mutual pressures, bonds and interconnections between Freedom and Healthcare. Too often, indeed, these two spheres are conceived as separated, which entails overlooking the conditionings – both in a positive and negative fashion – one might exercise on the other. Although contemporary health systems are metaphorically conceived as places in which health is protected and individuals’ rights are guaranteed, a consolidated tradition within sociology of health and medical anthropology has successfully highlighted how often freedom of choice and freedom of expression are overcome by consolidated paths of (in)formal powers, professional relationships, and social roles.