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Special Presentation

The Contribution of the Social and

Human Sciences to Health Research,

Teaching and EducationThe present issue o Sade e Sociedadeoers to thereader a set o reections made by social scientistsderiving rom papers presented at the II EncontroPaulista de Cincias Sociais e Humanas em Sa-

de (2nd So Paulos Meeting o Social and HumanSciences in Health), which was held in So Paulo,at Universidade Federal de So Paulo UNIFESP-, in 2009, whose theme was The contribution othe Social and Human Sciences to the education,

research and teaching o Public Health.As the theme suggests, the meeting aimed toopen space or reection, debate and exchange oexperiences between proessionals rom these areas.They were joined through Associao Paulista deSade Pblica (So Paulos Public Health Associa-tion) and Comisso de Cincias Sociais e Humanasda ABRASCO (Social and Human Sciences Commit-tee o ABRASCO).

In the set o texts presented here, the reader willbe able to observe the variety o issues o dierent

natures epistemological, theoretical, methodologi-cal, technological that trouble and challenge socialscientists who deal with the production o knowl-edge, teaching and education in the felds o PublicHealth and Medicine.

In relation to the challenges present in knowl-edge production, the papers by Ana Maria Canesqui,Madel Therezinha Luz and urea Maria ZllnerIanni illustrate well the debate that occurs, some-times explicitly, sometimes in a veiled orm, when

social scientists strive to articulate two areas odiverse natures, with dierent research traditions.The classic health reerences are placed, due to theirtradition, as the tacit and dominant parameter interms o recognition in the production o truly sci-entifc knowledge, a parameter that is seconded bythe hegemonic paradigm o objectivity that supportsmodern science and the primacy o its method.

Thus, the above-mentioned papers approachthe constitution o the feld o Health as a feld omultidisciplinary knowledge and practices, point-

ing to the diversity o issues that derives rom thisas related to the historical transormations o thecontemporary society, whose tensions dey not onlythe Social and Human Sciences in general, but,remarkably, complex and specifc felds like thato Health, in which these sciences are inscribedand institutionalized, sharing spaces with the tra-ditional Natural and Exact Sciences, via dierentprocesses.

In the discussion process undertaken by these

authors, they debate the contributions o the Social

and Human Sciences to the hybrid feld o Health,or their possibilities o contributions. However, the

highlight is the impasses and tensions suered toachieve the recognition o their knowledge. MadelLuz, or example, deals with what she characterizesas the inadequate and reductionist employment o

the instruments theoretical, methodological andtechnical in the approach to the health problems,which would put the Social and Human Sciences

at the service o other types o knowledge that are

present in the feld, traditionally considered as morelegitimate.

Thereore, the reader can enjoy a rich discussionabout the many types o discrimination suered bythe Social and Human Sciences in the feld o Health.An example is the biologizing view that character-izes the hegemonic biomedical model, remarkablyin the feld o medicine, as argued by Canesqui;within the area o Public Health itsel, accordingto Madel Luz, the traditional epidemiological ap-

proach to health problems equally reproduces thisreductionist and hegemonic view in the relationit maintains with the Social and Human Sciences,undermining the importance o their contributionto the production o knowledge in the feld, whichis evidenced especially in the evaluation processeso our postgraduate system in Brazil.

Based on these authors discussion, a broad

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scenario is opened in which dierent types o issuesare presented, issues to be aced by social scientists,as is the case o the so-called dichotomies and re-ductionisms that the social and human scientistsmeet when they deal with hybrid objects and di-erent research traditions that do not interact and,many times, oppose each other. The reading o these

authors texts show how these dichotomies standout in epistemological terms, with implications tothe process o knowledge generation in the area,as is the case o the polarizations between natureand culture taken as the discussion axis by ureaIanni in her text -, subject and object, objective andsubjective.

This type o discussion is enriched by the studyconducted by Pedro Paulo Gomes Pereira, who ar-gues that, despite the several dierences mentioned

by social scientists and also by biophysicians whowork in the feld o health, both seem to share a largedivision as the basic rule o the game they play intheir practices: the division between nature andculture. Based on this axis o analysis, the authoropens to the reader important discussions that dealwith relations and tensions experienced by socialscientists in the feld o health, emphasizing therole o the anthropologist in view o the pragmatismplaced in his work by the biomedical tradition o thefeld. The author assumes a propositional posture

when he discourses on possible contribution ormso social and human scientists, mainly anthropolo-gists, in view o these tensions, as shown by the titleo his paper: Specifcity o the Contribution o theKnowledge and Practices o the Social and HumanSciences to Health.

In the line o relections on the theoretical-methodological contributions o the Social Sciencesto research in the health area, Eunice Nakamuraocuses on the role o the ethnographic method

and o anthropology. She considers that both havea necessary relationship in the knowledge gene-ration process, which means saying that the useo the ethnographic method implies producinganthropological knowledge. With these considera-tions, the author is concerned about the risks o amethodological reductionism due to the increasingincorporation o this method into health research.This may transorm it, many times, in a research

technique, given the areas pragmatic tendency,which would represent its simplifcation and theloss o its character.

The richness o the dialog between theory andresearch practice, announced by Eunice Nakamura,can be observed in the posture adopted by LarissaPelcio, in her work entitled Social Markers o Di-

erence in the Experiences o Transvestites Copingwith AIDS.

It is a study in which the reader can observethat well-conducted empirical research, rom thetheoretical-methodological point o view and alsorom the technological one, allows that theoryand practice eed one another. The results o theinvestigation enrich the theory, truly generatingknowledge, with new categories that emerge romexperiences narrated by real social subjects.

The importance o the dialog with reality, on thepart o scholars o the public health feld, unders-tood as an interdisciplinary feld, is emphasized byRubens Adorno, Maria da Penha Vasconcellos andAugusta T. de Alvarenga, when they approach com-plex health issues that require the dense analysis oscholars rom the feld, in view o the employmento a broader rationality that subordinates neitherthought to science paradigms nor the latter toan abstract model, isolated rom reality, rom thereal living conditions o real human beings. In

this perspective, they point to the importance oconsidering and identiying typical phenomena odelayed modernity, with implications to the feld oHealth. In addition, they emphasize that the SocialSciences, mainly Anthropology, must reect on thedaily things that set in motion the lie o groupsthat are targets o health actions and their publicpolicies, which are many times normative, not un-derstood as social policies. Scientists should reect,thereore, on the mismatches o reality a term

that the authors borrow rom Anthony Giddens which evidence the disagreement that modernityhas brought between time and space, transormingperceptions about what reality is, to social subjectsin general, to technicians, proessionals, and evento researchers.

The implications o what the very constitution oreality is in health research is approached by CeresGomes Vctora when she proposes to discuss the

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use o qualitative methods, beyond the nave andreductionist conception o conceiving them as a seto techniques, which enable the investigator andwe would add, the investigator o any theoreticaland methodological background to penetrate in areality and reveal its hidden or dissimulated orms; areality that is conceived as static and a-historical.

In her paper entitled A Replicating Science: theabsence o a discussion about method, ethics anddiscourse, issues o interest to an epistemology omethodology and technique are presented to rese-archers not only rom the feld o health.

Taking as analysis axis, like previous authors,the question o the dichotomies present in thediscourse o social scientists and biomedicalhealth researchers, the author argues that suchdichotomies, which are about knowledge and its

possibilities, are located on the basis o those thatare considered difculties in the employment othe qualitative methodology in the feld o health,remarkably as regards the problem o the choice oresearch techniques, the defnition o the numbero cases, the research context and the procedures odata analysis or interpretation problems that theauthor discusses in detail in her text.

In her discussion, Ceres Vctora shows that itis not only the techniques that produce qualitativeresearch, but the concepts about reality and the

researchers training to understand and conceivequestions o this nature. Emphasizing that empi-rical data do not speak by themselves, the authorstates the important idea that research is a processand that it is in the dialog that the investigator

maintains with a certain theory and between thistheory and the methodology, that it is possible toconstruct not only a certain problem or object oinvestigation, but the feldwork itsel.

The text by Nelson Filice de Barros in colla-boration with Cristiane Spadacio, the study byDenise Martin, and the one authored by Clarice

Cohn bring to the reader reections on the issue oeducation in the feld o health, in the postgraduateand undergraduate levels, in the perspective o theincorporation, by students and/or proessionals,o contents deriving rom the Social and HumanSciences in Health.

When they introduce the discussion about thetheme, Nelson Filice de Barros and Cristiane Spa-dacio whose text is entitled The PostgraduateStudents Education in the Contemporary World in

the Daily Routine o Research propose to synthe-size the debate undertaken by social and humanscientists in the 2nd So Paulos Meeting o Socialand Human Sciences, mentioning that they take theconcepts o praxis and epistemological ruptures asthe basis or its organization.

In the text entitled Reecting About Interdisci-plinary Post-graduation Education, Denise Martindiscusses, rom dierent angles, the relationshipbetween supervisor and postgraduate student, theexpectations, tensions and challenges aced by both

when they belong to dierent areas, reerring tothe ormation and production o knowledge romdistinct disciplinary views.

Finally, in the paper by Clarice Cohn, entitledTeaching Medical Anthropology to Undergraduate

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Students: an experience, the author reects on herexperience in the proposition and teaching o adiscipline o Anthropology, obligatory or the healthprograms and optional or the Social Sciences andPsychology programs, and narrates her strategiesto design the syllabus, which has an introductionto theoretical concepts that are undamental in the

area, as well as debates and reections, in seminars,about anthropological research in the health area,considered complementary in terms o education. Inher narrative o the experience, she seems to meetthe objective she proposes to reach in her teach-ing practice, that is, to promote a reection on thecultural dierence and the proessional exercise inthe health area.

Thus, by providing the reader with this set opapers ocusing on the theme o the Contribution o

the Social and Human Sciences to Health Research,Teaching and Education, we believe that the journalSade e Sociedadeplays an important disseminationrole when it gives, to the reader rom the feld ohealth, possibilities o better apprehending in whatlevels the variety o issues that challenge the multi-disciplinary relations between social scientists andbiophysicians are placed. We understand that it is inthis perspective that we can think about productionand innovation in the feld o knowledge in healthas a work o all, without hegemonies.

Augusta Thereza de Alvarenga

Maria da Penha Vasconcellos

Rubens de Camargo Ferreira Adorno

Professors with the School of Public Health of USP and with the Inter-

disciplinary Laboratory of Social Research in Public Health (LIESP).

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