ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part explores the theoretical traditions and concepts that inform and frame research in health geography. It shows how theory motivates and shapes research in health geography and more broadly the nature of the sub-discipline. The part aims to develop an understanding of some of the main theoretical perspectives; their constituent ideas, interests, range of applications, and internal developments and progress. It focuses on traditions that have had powerful influences on scholarship in health geography. The part clearly shows the emergence of a range of variously interconnected theoretical traditions in health geography that include new materialism, post-humanism, affect theory, complexity theory, relationality, assemblage theory and actor-network theory. Collectively these emerging traditions inform a move away from the traditional twin streams of health geography, instead telling something about the networked, physical, sensory, atmospheric, energetic, performed and moving nature of health and place.
