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An editorial is presented on how the politics of colonization continues to shape academic knowledge production, as a productive problem for health sociology. Topics include range of posthuman dilemmas across diverse health issues as they grapple with the ethical, ontological and epistemological relations of knowing and doing health; and posthuman perspectives enables the authors to generate health sociology knowledge beyond humanist assumptions, ideals and logics and rethink health care.

In this article we make the case that 'unlearning' is an important dimension of professional reflective practice that can offer new insights when done collaboratively. We do so as an interdisciplinary group of academics interested in 'undoing' the conventional and individualising norms of reflective practice in academic settings, particularly when it comes to planning and reflecting on group processes for research. In the process of planning a project to investigate mentoring in the professions of social work and teaching, we reflected on our own collaborative academic practices through co-facilitated discussion, the creation of visual 'd/artaphacts', written reflections on our perceptions of 'unlearning' and academic collaboration, and reviewing how our diverse disciplines have engaged with unlearning in research literature and practice. These responses generated insights into the intricacies of the collaborative practice of unlearning in a professional research environment. We draw on these conversations, d/artaphacts, and reflections to compose five principles for a pedagogy of unlearning that can be applied in mentoring and professional practice settings. The principles highlight the importance of approaching unlearning as a collaborative activity for sustainable professional practice and for supporting the development of professional identities in fluid and complex relational work environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smoking behavior of friends is a major risk factor for adolescent smoking uptake. To explore the social context of smoking experimentation and consolidation with a particular focus on friends, the authors interviewed both members of 14 young adult identical twin pairs who were discordant for smoking. The different smoking status of twins was connected to their different friendship groups and development of different identities. Smoking respondents gravitated to the behaviors and images of the peer group who smoked. Many nonsmokers felt strong pressure from their peers not to smoke and spoke about how the images conveyed by smoking were inconsistent with their peer group's image. Adolescents and young adults are aware of the messages that smoking can convey to others and exploit these images to construct a social identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco control advocates expend considerable effort in generating news stories on tobacco issues to assist progress in tobacco control, and the news coverage itself may have important policy and behavioral influences. Yet, studies of trends in such news coverage are uncommon. Between 2001 and 2006, we conducted a content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles in the 12 major daily Australian newspapers and coded them for type of article, topic, and tone. Overall, 6483 tobacco-focused articles were published, representing an average of one article every 4 days for each newspaper. There was variability in volume between years but no decline over time. Overall, 67% of articles reported on events that represented progress for tobacco control, 21% on setbacks, and 7% on events that were of mixed impact. Newspaper coverage of tobacco issues was dominated by articles on smoke-free issues (32% of articles), health effects of smoking (12%), education, prevention and cessation programs and services (12%), and the tobacco industry (9%). During the 6-year period, on average, Australian adults were potentially exposed to around one article on tobacco issues every week, or using a more stringent prominence-adjusted measure, one article every 2 to 3 weeks, a level comparable to paid media campaigns in some jurisdictions. Temporal variation in population exposure to news coverage about tobacco issues may reflect variability in newsworthiness of tobacco control issues, media advocacy resources and success, and/or preparedness of editors and journalists to entertain news stories on tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]