To Boldly Go? Place, Metaphor, and the Marketing of Auckland's Starship Hospital

Bibliographic Data

ID4476468
AuthorsRobin A Kearns (Department of Geography, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand), Robin Kearns (0000-0002-7890-1218, University of Auckland, corresponding author), J Ross Barnett (Department of Geography, University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand), John Barnett (University of Canterbury, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume17
Issue2
Pages201-226
Publication date1999-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/d170201
OpenAlexW2118890212
LanguageEN
Citations received45
References cited63

In this paper, we place the naming of the Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand, within the context of increasingly consumer-oriented health care provision. This use of metaphor alludes to the hospital's distinctive design features and represents an attempt to de-emphasise connotations associated with institutionalised medicine, thus normalising the place for children. However, those naming the hospital had more than children in mind. Rather, there was a dual intent: to market the hospital as a distinctive place for monetary donors, as well as promoting a more therapeutic environment for youthful users. Through the vehicle of our case study, we raise questions concerning the competition by health care services for public and private funds. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond viewing hospitals as service entities and equating health care consumption with utilisation behaviour. Rather, a merging of insights from the political economy of health care and new cultural geography literatures can aid the development of more finely textured understandings of the meaning of contemporary health care, and the role of metaphor and marketing in selling places of health care consumption

Advertising · Business · Consumption (sociology · Context (archaeology · Health care · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Metaphor · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Service (business · Social science · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Children's Rights and Participation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Law · Medicine · New Zealand Economic and Social Studies · Nursing · Psychology · Marketing

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