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Politics of Desire

When we begin with the fundamental CCA question in our journeys of co-construction, we seek to understand the meanings of health among communities that have historically been erased from spaces of discourse. The dramatic difference that emerges throughout my CCA fieldwork is the gap between the meanings of health in the subaltern sectors of the globe and in the spaces of privilege inhabited by those of us who are counted among the haves. The politics of health as desire lies precisely in this gap, in this basic difference in our understanding about what health is, that is shaped by our material access to structures and the inequities that are written into the ways in which these structures are organized. The politics of desire then is precisely mapped into the politics of inequality, in the basic assumptions about what is "enough" or "sufficient" to have a healthy life. The challenge to the dominant structures in the mainstream that perpetuate these inequities can come precisely in the interrogation of these desires and their locations amidst our privileges.
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