A Sociology of Diabetes: Chronic Disease, Institutions, and the Production of Medical Knowledge

This paper proposes a sociological approach to chronic disease using diabetes as an exemplary case. It examines how biological mechanisms, clinical practices, and institutional frameworks are intertwined in shaping how diabetes is defined, studied, and managed. Rather than treating biological and social domains as separate, the analysis emphasizes their mutual embeddedness. Decisions about what counts as evidence, which mechanisms are emphasized, and how uncertainty is interpreted have technical dimensions, but they are also shaped by governance structures, professional norms, and policy contexts. Understanding chronic disease, therefore, requires attention both to biological processes and to the conditions under which these processes are investigated, interpreted, and translated into medical knowledge and practice.