Using qualitative methods in medical geography: Deconstructive moments in a subdiscipline?

As medical geography reinvents itself as health geography, the linkages bet ween social theory and the deconstruction of central categories organizing its medical orientation are being explored. This paper discusses the contri bution of qualitative research to this process. In providing access to alte rnative ways of understanding health concerns, and emphasizing issues of po wer in the production of knowledge, qualitative methodology carries the pot ential for reconceptualizing key issues framing investigation of the relati onships between place, people, and their health. In pursuing current issues in social theory, qualitative research also contributes to the blurring of the subdiscipline's boundaries and revitalizes its agenda.