Therapeutic Landscapes and the Public Health Conceptualization of Alcohol-Related Illness in Moscow, Russia

Abstract

In this dissertation, I argue that therapeutic landscapes for treating alcohol-related illnesses in Russia are key locations for the negotiation of alcohol-related illnesses as public health problems. I contend that therapeutic landscapes are centrally important in shaping public health understandings of alcohol-related illnesses in Russia. I demonstrate that therapeutic landscapes are not only places with significant health importance and unique healing qualities. Instead, such spaces and places are productive of health geographies and public health discourses. I base my argument as an extension of therapeutic landscape analysis and an examination of contrasting approaches to dealing with alcohol related illnesses in Russia: narcology, the 12 steps, and New Public Health. I specifically show how rehabilitation and illness are both materially and discursively constructed in each therapeutic landscape. In doing so, I link the practices in each landscape to the broader structural public health conceptualizations of alcohol-related illness.