ABSTRACT
Constructing boundaries, discriminating and differentiating is the work of all academic and professional disciplines. Law and medicine are complex in the divisions and categorisations they employ, but so too are sociology, anthropology, history, mathematics and the natural and applied sciences. In pursing academic study or professional achievement, actors do not only adopt their disciplines’ categorisations through their work and the language they use. They also actively participate in the construction and perpetuation of those categories. Acting out the world as if it were as defined within one’s discipline is a creative and sustaining activity with a strong tendency towards solidifying the status quo. The categorisation of health into public and private domains has affected not only medicine and how it is practised, but has also affected how health and its administration has been regulated. Yet categorisations are not immutable. They are not firm boundaries imposed by one powerful group to constrain others. They are constructed within particular social, economic, cultural, political contexts and, as such, are susceptible ultimately to change.
