Re-producing rural health: Challenging dominant discourses and the manifestation of power

The field of rural health in Australia, and elsewhere, is known for its problems - the difficulties of providing accessible health services, recruiting staff and providing quality healthcare. This paper challenges dominant knowledge surrounding rural health as the product of power relations that work through discourse to construct rural as problematic, inferior and undesirable compared to its urban counterpart. In particular, the deficit discourses surrounding rural health are contested by considering the systematic comparison to urban health through workforce ratios, research and the challenges of rural clinical training. The commonly held perception that 'working rural will be disadvantageous to a practitioner's career' is also unpacked by examining the place of General Practice and rural practice in the medical hierarchy. Constructions of rural people as stoic and rural communities as inferior and homogenous are challenged, along with the notions that rural life is boring and rural practice monotonous. The paper calls for a re-framing of the field of rural health by promoting knowledge of its distinctiveness, the attractions of rural practice and the diversity of rural people. Such re-framing can challenge the dominantly produced discourses about rural health and shift the relations of power embedded in rural health's challenges.