This essay discusses the role of the social sciences, especially Anthropology, in structuring the field of Colective Health in Brazil by reviewing a number of recently published studies on the subject. We approach Colective Health as part of the scientific field, in which there is competition and negotiations regarding, on the one hand, the definition of what can and should be investigated - using which methods and for what purpose - and, on the other, who has the authority to speak on behalf of Collective Health and define its limits. We discuss how Collective Health was structured in Brazil, showing how the position occupied by its traditional sub-fields - Epidemiology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Policy, Planning and Management - implies an underlying herarchy that evolved through time. Analysing the theoretical, methodological and thematic transformations that ocurred in the field over the last decades, we argue that the traditional hierarchy between social sciences and health sciences has somewhat been subverted in such a manner that may lead to a new way of thinking about the the Colective Health field as a whole.
Colective Health; Social Sciences; scientific field