Social sciences and the relationship between human and nonhuman within the One Health framework

The One Health (OH) approach adopts a relational perspective that encompasses connections and interdependencies among humans, other living species, and the environment. Since the mid-2000s, and even more so after the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers and policy makers have paid increasing attention on this approach. The article discusses different hypothesis on OH’s history. Also, it proposes an understanding of OH’s origins closely linked to how contemporary societies are fundamentally reshaping their way of conceiving risks and dealing with them, as Ulrich Beck has taught us. Finally, the Authors describe OH as a bourdieusian field of actors, practices, and relationships. This implies the consequence of considering as knowledge-producing actors also the bearers of those forms of practical, secular, experiential knowledge that are generally excluded from the production of scientific knowledge, in addition to the bearers of knowledge and interests of an economic and administrative nature.