A critical realist interpretation of a health narrative derived from young adults in Suriname during COVID-19: a politico-economic excavation into the ideological substructure of health

Summary of intent: It is widely accepted that health is important. Its definition, however, is far from uniform and subject to change. This project is committed to exploring and evaluating subjective perceptions, feelings, and attitudes towards the concept of health in attempt to give meaning to such derivates of social reality. The argument developed suggests that con-temporary conceptualizations of health are deeply entangled in underlying politico-economic processes which have been found to have shaped experiences, behaviour and policy re-sponses. It is the objective of this paper to present the elements carefully as to underscore the interconnectedness of the matter while scholastically seeking to focus explicitly on two conceptual pairs notable in politico-economic debate: commodification vs decommodifica-tion. Though the interest is conceptual – if not philosophical at heart – this excavation is embedded in empirical investigation. Context: This research has been conducted against the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic within the geo-cultural context of Suriname – a middle income coun-try situated in the South American Caribbean. Furthermore, young adults as a variable, have been operationalized as a distinguishing factor for investigating health conceptualization within a diverse demographic. Methodology: The design of this study adhered to the ontological positioning of a critical realist. As such, this study was formulated to be evaluative rather than simply descriptive. The methods included 25 semi-structured qualitative interviews followed by 12 research par-ticipatory drawing exercises. The findings were supplemented by descriptive inferences of statistical data from relevant literary sources for analytical purposes. Results: The findings indicate that processes of commodification have little bearing upon the gross majority of health conceptualizations, practices, and policy responses with the ex-ception of conceptualizations derived or infused by depictions from social media. This in-currence is inferred to be the result of the increased commercialization and marketization of healthy lifestyles in digitally established markets which are furthermore induced by neoliberal ideologies.