The special issue analyses health and environment as the means to reduce social inequalities in Argentina. With this aim in mind, we propose to apply the approach of social determinants to the health-disease-environment process on the basis of the following categories: social class reproduction and society-nature metabolism.

Health and environment are real polysemous objects, thought in praxis and from an intersubjective perspective.

In this sense, we suggest to move toward a critical paradigm that implies how the ontological aspect and innovation intertwines with different forms of influence within the framework of a dialectical process of socio-historical determinants. From the ontological perspective, the object is seen as complex, and innovation is defined in terms of categories and methodological operations which allow the object to make it intelligible. As to the socio-historical determinants, we include the following approaches: (a) the critical geography; (b) the information as an expression of the human thought, a product of transformative activities of the social subject, and considered from the point of view of the epistemology of the praxis; (c) the concept of social vulnerability as a mediator of thought, since political, ethical, cultural and psycho-affective aspects can be displayed in the social complexity; and (d) the construction of health and environment from the potentialities of the triangle of politics that can put together the political proposal and strategy, and the management capacity.

Aims and Scope: