Armer et al., 2013; Biehl and Petryna, 2013; Anderson, 2014), this introduction outlines three

Armer et al., 2013; Biehl and Petryna, 2013; Anderson, 2014), this introduction outlines three themes that, we believe, are central to a critical engagement with the politics of NCDs in the AZD1722 biological activity global South. First, an attention to `problematisation’ is an opportunity of examine and reflect on the conditions ?intellectual categories, moral principles, geopolitical models, medical practices and other techniques ?that make it possible to think about chronic diseases as a problem for developing countries today. Second, a concern with `care’ can help analyse and question contemporary NCD policies in the global South and their consequences by drawing on a tradition of social justice and human rights. Third, a focus on `culture’ offers a grid of analysis to explore and make sense of how both unhealthy lifestyles and public health policies associated with NCDs are translated, resisted and transformed when they travel from the global North to the global South. The six papers in this order Bay 41-4109 special issue represent important contributions to these themes while also highlighting the incredibly broad range, depth and complexity of concerns that the politics of NCDs invoke. These concerns then signpost future research agendas across the social sciences that are attuned to the current tenor of policy debates as well as shifts in the landscape of global health funding and programmatic priorities that will be drawn out at the end of this introduction.2. The problematisation of chronic disease in the global South For the most part, public health experts are concerned with confirming that NCDs are an issue for LMICs and articulating possible solutions. In contrast, more critically minded researchers are interested in exploring the conceptual, political and material conditions that make it possible to identify and think about chronic diseases as a problem of development today. Such an approach draws on the notion of `problematisation’ developed by Foucault (1984; 1988) and others (e.g. Rabinow and Rose, 2003; Hacking, 2002; Miller and Rose, 2008; Koopman, 2013). For these scholars, `problems are not pre-given, laying there waiting to be revealed’, but `have to be constructed and made visible’ through `a complex and often slow process’ (Miller and Rose, 2008, p.14). It is this `process of problematisation’ that they are keen to analyse in order to understand `how and why certain things (behaviour, phenomena, processes) became a problem’ (Foucault, 1984, p.17). This means exploring the `ensemble of discursive and non-discursive practices that make something enter into the play of true and false and constitute it as an object of thought, whether in the form of moral reflection, scientific knowledge or political analysis’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow and Rose, 2003, p.xviii-xix). Put differently, it involves studying the progressive development and assemblage of the scientific, moral and political rationalities, institutions, practices and techniques that make it possible to think of certain things as a problem today.D. Reubi et al. / Health Place 39 (2016) 179?Taking such an approach, then, is to argue that chronic diseases in the global South are not a pre-given reality waiting to be revealed through ever more sophisticated epidemiological investigations but a problem that has been made thinkable through the progressive articulation of a complex assemblage of geopolitical categories, modernisation theories, biomedical practices and international networks of experts in.Armer et al., 2013; Biehl and Petryna, 2013; Anderson, 2014), this introduction outlines three themes that, we believe, are central to a critical engagement with the politics of NCDs in the global South. First, an attention to `problematisation’ is an opportunity of examine and reflect on the conditions ?intellectual categories, moral principles, geopolitical models, medical practices and other techniques ?that make it possible to think about chronic diseases as a problem for developing countries today. Second, a concern with `care’ can help analyse and question contemporary NCD policies in the global South and their consequences by drawing on a tradition of social justice and human rights. Third, a focus on `culture’ offers a grid of analysis to explore and make sense of how both unhealthy lifestyles and public health policies associated with NCDs are translated, resisted and transformed when they travel from the global North to the global South. The six papers in this special issue represent important contributions to these themes while also highlighting the incredibly broad range, depth and complexity of concerns that the politics of NCDs invoke. These concerns then signpost future research agendas across the social sciences that are attuned to the current tenor of policy debates as well as shifts in the landscape of global health funding and programmatic priorities that will be drawn out at the end of this introduction.2. The problematisation of chronic disease in the global South For the most part, public health experts are concerned with confirming that NCDs are an issue for LMICs and articulating possible solutions. In contrast, more critically minded researchers are interested in exploring the conceptual, political and material conditions that make it possible to identify and think about chronic diseases as a problem of development today. Such an approach draws on the notion of `problematisation’ developed by Foucault (1984; 1988) and others (e.g. Rabinow and Rose, 2003; Hacking, 2002; Miller and Rose, 2008; Koopman, 2013). For these scholars, `problems are not pre-given, laying there waiting to be revealed’, but `have to be constructed and made visible’ through `a complex and often slow process’ (Miller and Rose, 2008, p.14). It is this `process of problematisation’ that they are keen to analyse in order to understand `how and why certain things (behaviour, phenomena, processes) became a problem’ (Foucault, 1984, p.17). This means exploring the `ensemble of discursive and non-discursive practices that make something enter into the play of true and false and constitute it as an object of thought, whether in the form of moral reflection, scientific knowledge or political analysis’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow and Rose, 2003, p.xviii-xix). Put differently, it involves studying the progressive development and assemblage of the scientific, moral and political rationalities, institutions, practices and techniques that make it possible to think of certain things as a problem today.D. Reubi et al. / Health Place 39 (2016) 179?Taking such an approach, then, is to argue that chronic diseases in the global South are not a pre-given reality waiting to be revealed through ever more sophisticated epidemiological investigations but a problem that has been made thinkable through the progressive articulation of a complex assemblage of geopolitical categories, modernisation theories, biomedical practices and international networks of experts in.