HEALTH PROMOTION AND THE DISCOURSE ON CULTURE - IMPLICATIONS FOR EMPOWERMENT

To invoke the primacy of culture in health education activities is not only to challenge approaches to health education that overlook or dow nplay this domain, but to also deepen and extend the possibilities of progressive approaches that focus on culture. Border pedagogy, which s eeks to establish a countervoice to Eurocentrism and patriarchy, enhan ces and magnifies the possibilities that were opened up when critical pedagogy invoked the engagement of students in the production of knowl edge. This process of engaging the teacher/interventionists and the st udents/audiences in the production of meaning, value, pleasure, and kn owledge should be central to the mission of health education. It is on ly through such dialogue where varied cultural expressions are affirme d and centralized that the production of cultural identity can be legi timating and empowering relative to health promotion.