Paper short abstract:

‘Denormalization’ has become a concept widely used in public health discourse. It is not without its problems, as social scientists have pointed out. This paper argues for the need to interrogate the concept and its targets more carefully, using tobacco control as an example.

Paper long abstract:

Tobacco control has focussed on denormalization as a principle by which smoking prevalence rates can be reduced. Other branches of public health are taking up the concept too. Denormalization aims to change perceptions and meanings of a practice at a population level. Its focus on changing social norms rather than on individual behaviour change broadens the scope of tobacco control. However, as a concept it has been criticized recently for its tendency to stigmatize 'the smoker' (Bell et al 2010). The distinction between 'smoking' and 'smoker' is one frequently made in the more cutting edge domains of tobacco control as an attempt to circumvent this problem, but it is problematic and easily transgressed in everyday life. This paper will argue the need to rethink, or at least fine tune, public health approaches to denormalization, not only by interrogating the concept of 'the smoker' as a target for intervention but also by changing the focus of abnormality from 'smoker' to 'tobacco industry'. Tobacco distributors and suppliers, legal and illegal, fuel the 'tobacco epidemic' for shareholder or personal profit. Historical and contemporary analysis will be used to show how the denormalization agenda has tended to play out in practice and will suggest that, far from being a legitimate part of the corporate landscape, an alternative reading of the tobacco industry is as something of an aberration in late 20th century capitalism.