Face to Face, an inter-disciplinary review presenting a social science perspective on health, is both a risk and a collective adventure. Using the World Wide Web as sole medium of the publication demonstrates our willingness to take a chance on the web's potential for communication, exchanges and encounters. We see this cyber-review as a way to explore, widen and intensify the debate between researchers and, consequently, to renew ways in which we produce knowledge. It's an adventure in that the scientific project which inspired this initiative, (University of Bordeaux II; Societes, Sante, Developpement), is meant to give voice to the interests and methodology used by the youngest scientists of our research team, the doctorate and post-doctorate students.

The following Key themes sum up the scientific objectives of Face to Face and will be the guidelines for our editorial policy.

Health issues as indicators of social dynamics.

The social approach to the human body, both in its basic functions and dysfunctions, constitutes a powerful indicator of the way society organizes itself concretely and abstractly. It can show the relations members of that society maintain but also the manner in which that society reproduces and transforms itself. Thus, the study of health issues constitutes a prism for social scientists in which they can read social changes that have marked both individuals and communities, today and throughout history. For Health disciplines and for Public Health in particular, this means that problems encountered while maintaining or improving the state of health of a given population can never be examined through an exclusively medical perspective but are inseparable from social, cultural, economic and political contexts in which they occur.

An interdisciplinarity approach.

Above and beyond the usual lip service given to inter-disciplinarity, (so often run amiss by territorial research strategies), a collaboration between disciplines is methodologically necessary in order to explore the composite scientific domain mentioned above. Analyzing complex health situations, a communication of social system dynamics and biological systems, means necessarily confronting and comparing perspectives from different disciplines-- be it between different social sciences or between social and biomedical sciences. This does not mean all research in the field of health must be interdisciplinary. It does imply however that this research must feed into a scientific debate which will help some social scientists integrate the non-social part of phenomena they may study and help medical scientists recognize that social issues are an integral part of the problems they encounter.

From local to global; the virtues of comparison.

If establishing highly pertinent theoretical models is the objective of scientific knowledge, then only the in-depth study of concrete, locally-targeted situations can help attain this. The health field is no exception. By bringing together and comparing facts observed in differentiated social, cultural, economic and geographic contexts as well as juxtaposing distinct theoretical and methodological points of view, we hope to attain conclusions that have a wide impact. Comparing situations between developing countries and developed ones can be particularly rich, from this point of view. The articles we would like to publish in this review must respect the scientific objectives announced above. Whether they be of the social sciences or the biomedical sciences, articles must also meet the following criteria:

-- explore the rapport between health/wellness and social dynamics
-- be pertinent for diciplines other than the one in which it is based.

We strongly suggest articles be based on concrete observations and thus contribute to the constitution of a wider corpus illustrating situations in different local contexts.

The goal of this review is above all to allow scientists to exchange ideas. To give room for some debate texts must be short, i.e. 20,000 characters maximum, or 4,000 words. They must present original methodology, offer a thesis which encourages scientific discussion or describe a concrete situation that can prompt comparisons.

If the thesis is based on field work that cannot be sufficiently developed due to space, bibliographical references can be furnished. As on-line publishing allows for an interactive rapport between readers and writers, the review staff will attempt to promote these exchanges.

Submitted articles will be evaluated by a Peer Reading Committee which will base its choices on the above criteria. Modifications may be suggested to the author.

Articles must be furnished on Word or RTF (PC or Mac compatible)- submitted on either floppy disks or by downloading. The review will be published in French and English. We are willing to accept Spanish and Portuguese documents if necessary.

Our goal is to generate one review every six months. However, in the beginning, this period may be irregular.

In order to protect the texts, they will be edited on Acrobat format which only allows for screen consultation and paper impression. Their use will be conditioned by "international intellectual property law", which stipulates that they may be quoted on the condition the source is indicated.

Editorial Team

Coordinators : Claire Mestre; Madina Querre.

Editorial Committee

Claire Boileau ; Fred Eboko ; Chrystelle Grenier-Torres; Matthieu de Labarre ; Claire Mestre ; Mariquita Panizza.

Scientific Committee

Claude Raynaut : Research Director CNRS , anthropologist, Bordeaux, France.

Maryse Gaimard : Director of SSD UMR CNRS 5185, Lecturer in Demography, Bordeaux, France.

Alain Levigouroux : Medical doctor, Research Departement director of Centre Inter-States for Public Health in Central Africa (CIESPAC), Yaoundé, Cameroun.

La revue Face A Face étant en cours d'évolution, la constitution du comité scientifique ne sera définitive que dans quelques mois.

Translation

Hilary Koziol, Université Bordeaux 2.

Administrator

Charles Cheung

Webmaster

Frédéric Thion

Contacts
UMR 5185 CNRS / University of Bordeaux 2
146 rue Léo Saignat
33076 Bordeaux-cedex
France
Tel. : 33 5 57 57 15 59
Fax : 33 5 56 51 85 64
E-mail : WEBMASTER SSD