Medizinethnologie

News

Call for Papers: Families Managing Health and Wellbeing in Times of Crisis

25.7 – 28.7.2023

Workshop at the German Anthropological Association’s (DGSKA e.V.) biennial conference “Contested Knowledge: Perspectives in Social and Cultural Anthropology”, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 25-28 July 2023

Convenors: PD Dr. Astrid Bochow (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Dr. Dominik Mattes (Freie Universität Berlin)

Keynote address: Prof. Sjaak van der Geest (Emeritus Professor of Medical Anthropology, University of Amsterdam)

Please send your abstract of max. 200 words to a.bochow1@gmail.com and dominik.mattes@fu-berlin.de by 15 December 2022.

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Postcolonial theory criticizes that knowledge about the body, health, and wellbeing is deeply connected to varying forms of governmentality and submission. Postcolonial ethnography, for instance, documents contests over health epistemologies and authority in contexts of medical pluralism and shows that families are crucial in the sense of “therapy managing groups” that help mediate different health epistemologies reconciling, for instance, social-spiritual with physical aspects of healing. Families also partake in the negotiations around diverging conceptualizations of health and well-being between individual patients and biomedical institutions. Finally, families may mediate particular forms of subjectivation pursued by state institutions, while themselves subduing individuals to local forms of gender and age-related hierarchies.

Meanwhile, recent social phenomena such as long-term lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, dramatically rising daily living expenses, growing numbers of people being forced to leave their home countries, as well as environmental catastrophes reinforce public and scholarly interests in families as resources of social and material care and support for vulnerable people including children and elderly people. We invite papers that reflect on how families shape health management in these (and other) contexts of crisis where multiple forms of knowledge and institutional expectations collide. Among others, they may address the following questions:

How do family members mediate (competing) institutional knowledge, e.g. related to nutrition, sports, medication but also loss and trauma?

Which sources and bodies of knowledge are deemed legitimate for what reasons, and how are they negotiated?

Do daily health-related decisions reflect gender and age-related hierarchies?

How do family members deal with governmental and other institutional expectations concerning their role as central sites of caregiving?

Please send your abstract of max. 200 words to a.bochow1@gmail.com and dominik.mattes@fu-berlin.de by 15 December 2022.

Online Workshop: Outbreak preparedness and health emergencies: What has been and could be the contribution of German medical anthropology?

02.02.2022, 10-17 (CET)
The Zentrum für Internationalen Gesundheitsschutz (ZIG) of the Robert Koch Institute cordially invites interested anthropologists to this workshop with scholars working in Germany in the field of Global Health.

With: Dr. Hansjörg Dilger (Freie Universität Berlin), Dr. Uli Beisel (Freie Universität Berlin), Dr. Sung-Joon Park (Bernhard-Nocht-Institut für Tropenmedizin) and Dr. Almudena Marí-Sáez (ZIG, Robert Koch Institute)

Moderated by: Dr. Almudena Marí-Sáez and Carlos Rocha (ZIG, Robert Koch Institute)

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ZIG offers an online workshop through which past experiences and possibilities for future development of anthropology in the field of Global Health, in particular response to outbreaks and other health emergencies, could be put on the table.

The main goal is to enable the exchange of ideas as to why and how to create a directory of Germany-based researchers in Global Health and anthropology who are ready to contribute, including through deployment, to health emergency response globally. Besides exchanging experiences, including on methods, the workshop will encourage participants to reflect on how to carry out anthropological research during health emergencies and outbreaks aimed at mitigating the public health impact at the local level. Furthermore, the challenges related to what is expected of anthropologists and what their actual contribution is, as well as the actual need of creating a network based in Germany, will be addressed.

The workshop is directed to anthropologists having an affiliation with a German institution or working in Germany who have been involved in outbreak response anywhere (including in Germany) or work on Global Health issues. Space is also available for other anthropologists, especially students, interested in the field of Global Health and in outbreak response deployments.

Workshop will begin with presentations about previous experiences and theoretical reflections related to Global Health followed by questions and answers (Moment 1). We will continue with small group discussions on the different challenges related to anthropological expertise during health emergency response and a moderated sharing of ideas on the best way forward for German anthropological expertise in outbreak response (Moment 2). Participation in Moment 2 is limited to 42 participants.

Please confirm attendance to the presentations and interest to take part in the afternoon session (moment 2 is limited to 42 participants) to one of the following email addresses: zig.anthropology@rki.de or rochac@rki.de.

Concept note

Agenda

“Witnessing Corona” – Call for blog contributions

We are delighted to announce that the “Blog Medical Anthropology / Medizinethnologie”, Curare: Journal of Medical Anthropology, the Global South Studies Centre Cologne, and boasblogs have jointly launched the new blog series “Witnessing Corona.”

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We are inviting further contributions of max 2000 words that address questions of:

  • social solidarity and moral blaming
  • living a life in social and/or physical isolation
  • unequal biosocial and/or psychological vulnerabilities
  • political-economic implications for healthcare infrastructures
  • historically contingent forms, possibilities, and risks of governmental intervention
  • and a host of other themes related to the Corona pandemic whose understanding will benefit from a (medical) anthropological perspective.

The contributions may range from theory- or ethnography-based articles to more personally tinged reflections in the form of a think piece. They can be in English or German. Pictures, drawings, small videos etc. are welcome (please provide captions and copyright information)!

Please send your contributions to medizinethnologie@gmail.com. We are very much looking forward to your submissions!

Best wishes,

Hansjörg Dilger, Dominik Mattes, Ehler Voss, Martina Gockel-Frank, Clemens Greiner, Christine Rath

(on behalf of the “Witnessing Corona” editorial team)

CfP for AG Medical Anthropology Workshop „Exploring ecologies of mind in (mental) health. Eco-pathologies and onto-politics of healing econonomies“

16.-17.05.2019, Freie Universität Berlin

Submission Deadline: 01.03.2019

Conveners: Caroline Meier zu Biesen (Freie Universität Berlin), Nasima Selim (Freie
Universität Berlin), Claudia Lang (Cermes3, Paris), Dominik Mattes (Freie Universität Berlin)

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How do we shift our epistemological habits of differentiating phenomena into binary opposites, such as body and mind, nature and culture, tradition and modernity, or biomedicine and traditional healing? Recent analytical approaches in the field of (mental) health are based on ontological perspectives that place emphasis on the relations between and the mutual co-constitution of actors and entities that are otherwise considered discrete and bounded elements of the social world. These approaches include, for instance, the “ecology of mind in health and illness” (Kirmayer 2015); “eco-psychiatry” (Chowdhury and Jadav 2012); “eco-centric self” (Kirmayer et al. 2009); “affective arrangements” (Slaby et al. 2017) or “digital ecologies” in youth mental health (Fullagar et al. 2017). Drawing from Gregory Bateson’s framework of an ecology of mind (Bateson 2000 [1972]; 1979), many of these approaches stress the inherent connections between the embodied minds of human beings and “nature” including the environment and non-human beings. Bateson’s ecology of mind itself redefines epistemology as knowing how to look for patterns that connect the living world as a series of formal and abstract relations. In this workshop, we wish to further experimentally explore these ideas with a particular interest in the intersection of (mental) health and traditional healing [… more].

We invite contributions that address questions including – but not limited to – the following:

– How do we connect minds, bodies, social and ecological relations, and economies
in order to formulate a broader understanding of (mental) pathologies as ecopathologies?

– What form do the political interests and power relations constituting a
therapeutic field as “traditional,” “modern”, or “local” assume?

– Which factors affect the extent to which governmental and non-governmental
actors secure (and market) resources that preserve the health of their
communities?

– How do human and non-human entities interact in ecosystems of (mental) health
and healing traditions in and across the `Global South´ and `North´? What kinds
of new political, economic and contingent limitations or possibilities affect these
entities and their relations with one another?

– What are the possible configurations of ecologies of mind in a region where
diverse therapeutic traditions meet and compete with each other?

– How can we analyze these ecologies not only in terms of power that maintains
the status quo or results in systematic disruption of human, animal and plant lifeworlds,
but also in terms of productive power that fosters thriving healing
economies?

We seek ethnographic case studies from any part of the world as well as theoretical essays that address one or more of the above-mentioned themes. In addition to conventional textual narratives we welcome multi-modal presentations such as photo-essays, posters, body performances, video installations etc. Please mention whether you need additional space or technical equipment when you submit your abstract. Please submit your abstract (300 words max.) and a bionote (100 words max.) by 1 March 2019 to nasimaselim@zedat.fu-berlin.de and cmeier@zedat.fu-berlin.de. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 15 March 2019.

Members of the Work Group Medical Anthropology are warmly invited to present their ongoing research (even if unrelated to the workshop theme) in a separate session of the workshop. Please also submit your abstract and bionote by 1 March 2019.

Full Call for Papers here.

CfP „Without alternatives?! Challenging political-economic dogmas in the field of health and healing“, panel hosted by the AG Medical Anthropology at the GAA Conference 2019 „The End of Negotiations?“

29.09.-02.10.2019, University of Konstanz

Submission Deadline: 15.02.2019

Claudia Lang und Dominik Mattes
(AG Medical Anthropology)
claudia.lang@inserm.fr
dominik.mattes@fu-berlin.de

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Human health and well-being are closely contingent upon economic ideologies and political dogmas, and health professionals as well as policy makers in all parts of the world have long contended about how to organize equitable health care. Historically, both excessive neoliberal agendas and socialist processes of enforced communization have had disastrous effects on affected people’s physical and mental health. And more recently, nationalist-oriented actors push for drastic cutbacks of international (development) aid and prioritize service provision for particular populations within ‘their own’ countries, thus exacerbating unequal access to health care ‘at home’ and abroad. Such different approaches are often presented as being without alternative, i.e. as nonnegotiable in face of previous failures and specific political and financial constraints.

We invite papers that ethnographically explore how such logics of lacking alternatives are created, conveyed, defended, and (in)validated. What are the implications for the structuring of health systems, practices and ethics of caregiving, involved social relations and moral normativities, and individual experiences of suffering? How do such logics relate to the notion of health (care) as a fundamental human right and public good? What are the consequences in terms of the commodification of health and the (re)distribution of responsibilities for its maintenance and promotion? Which disparities regarding access to therapeutic means and innovation do they tackle but also engender? We further wish to attend to the sites and workings of resistance to such forms of discursive and practical closure: Where and how are respective logics contested and practically levered out? How and to what effect do patients, health practitioners, and policy makers maintain their openness to think and act alternatively in their endeavor to sustain and support their own and others’ health and well-being?

Full Call for Papers here.

PROFESSORSHIP FOR MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY / PROFESSUR FÜR MEDIZINETHNOLOGIE (UNIVERSITÄT LUZERN, OPEN RANK)

Deadline for applications / Bewerbungsfrist: 1.10.2018

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The department of Social and Cultural Anthropology invites applications from candidates who specialize in the field of medical anthropology. We expect applicants to have international visibility, fieldwork experience and substantial publications on empirical subjects that complement the existing specialities at the Department. Teaching responsibilities include courses at the BA-and MA-level in „Social and Cultural Anthropology“, „Cultural Studies“ and „World Society and Global Governance“.

Invitation for applications

Die Stelleninhaberin bzw. der Stelleninhaber soll die Bereiche Medical Anthropology in Forschung und Lehre vertreten. Wir erwarten von den Bewerberinnen und Bewerbern internationale Sichtbarkeit, außereuropäische Feldforschungserfahrung und einschlägige Publikationen zu empirischen Forschungsfeldern, die zu den Schwerpunkten des ethnologischen Seminars passen. Zu den Aufgaben der Lehre gehört die Ausbildung in den BA-und MA-Studiengängen „Ethnologie“ sowie Lehre in den Integrierten Studiengängen „Kulturwissenschaften“ sowie „Weltgesellschaft und Weltpolitik“.

Ausschreibung

CfP für den Workshop „Social Anthropology of ‚Well-Being‘ – Prekäres Leben: Krieg, Flucht, Migration“ (AG Medical Anthropology)

5.-6. Mai 2017, Institut für Ethnologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Organisation: Helene Basu, Natalie Gies-Powroznik, Claudia Lang, Dominik Mattes und Annika Strauss

Call for Papers

Wir möchten Sie herzlich zum nächsten thematischen Workshop der AG Medical Anthropology nach Münster einladen. Wie in den vergangenen Jahren soll der Workshop zunächst AG-Mitgliedern die Gelegenheit bieten, ihre laufenden Forschungsprojekte aus allen Bereichen der Medizinethnologie vorzustellen.

Der thematische Schwerpunkt der Veranstaltung wird dann aber auf dem Thema ‚Well-Being‘ unter Bedingungen des Krieges bzw. der Gewalt, Flucht und Migration liegen. Die Beiträge können beispielsweise die Kategorisierung und Behandlung psychischen, körperlichen, sozialen, und emotionalen Leidens thematisieren; strukturelle Rahmenbedingungen der Gesundheitsversorgung oder (möglicherweise konfliktive) ontologische Annahmen in Bezug auf Krankheitsbilder und Heilungsformen hinterfragen; oder spezifische gesundheitsrelevante Institutionen und Politiken sowie deren Konsequenzen für das ‚Well-Being’ betroffener Menschen in den Blick nehmen.

Die ethnologische Auseinandersetzung mit prekärem Leben im Kontext von Flucht und Migration nach Europa soll des Weiteren in Konversation mit in der Flüchtlingshilfe praktisch engagierten Berufstätigen und Freiwilligen erfolgen. Wir möchten daher nicht nur akademisch verortete Sozial- und Kulturanthropolog_innen zu dem Workshop einladen, sondern insbesondere auch Sozialarbeiter_innen, Psychiater_innen, Therapeut_innen und Vertreter_innen anderer Professionen, die im Flüchtlings- und Migrationsbereich tätig sind. Der intensive Austausch zwischen den Vortragenden aus diesen unterschiedlichen Berufsgruppen und gemeinsame Überlegungen zur Praxisrelevanz medizinethnologischer Forschungs- und Denkansätze sind das zentrale Anliegen des Treffens.

Vorträge können gerne in der Form ‚klassischer’, themenorientierter ‚Konferenzpapers‘ gehalten werden. Berichte über das Engagement verschiedener Institute für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie bzw. Ethnologie im Kontext von Flucht und Migration sind aber ebenso erwünscht. Schließlich freuen wir uns auch über Beiträge, die in selbstreflexiver Weise ethische Dilemmata, praktische Schwierigkeiten oder emotionale Herausforderungen in Forschungs-, Behandlungs- und Beratungssituationen fokussieren.

Wir schlagen vor, Papers in Tandems von Co-Teilnehmer_innen zu präsentieren. Schriftliche Versionen der Beiträge sollen außerdem vor dem Treffen zirkuliert werden, um die Vorbereitung von Kommentaren und einen möglichst tiefgehenden Austausch der Teilnehmer_innen über Fachgrenzen und Berufsgruppen hinweg zu ermöglichen. Deutsche und englische Workshop-Beiträge sind gleichermaßen willkommen.

Vorläufiges Programm:

Freitag, 5. Mai 2017: 14.00-18.30 Uhr
Anreise bis 14.00 Uhr
14.00-18.30 Uhr: Programm Teil (Vorstellung laufender Forschungsprojekte)
Anschließend gemeinsames Abendessen

Samstag 6. Mai 2017: 9.30-18.00 Uhr
9.00-16.00 Uhr: Programm Teil II (Prekäres Leben: Krieg, Flucht, Migration)
16.00-18.00 Uhr: Mitgliederversammlung der AG Medical Anthropology

Zeitrahmen:

Bitte schicken Sie Ihr Abstract (maximal 250 Wörter) bis zum 15. Februar 2017 an Johannes Zwilling (j_zwil01@uni-muenster.de).
Anmeldung zum Workshop bis zum 31. März 2017.
Vortragende und Teilnehmer_innen des Workshops müssen nicht Mitglied in der AG Medical Anthropology sein.

Finanzielle Unterstützung:

Je nach Anzahl der eingehenden Abstracts möchten wir eingeladenen Vortragenden (nur AG-Mitglieder)
ohne eigene Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten bei Bedarf einen Reisekostenzuschuss
zukommen lassen.

CfP for Workshop „Embodied Belonging: In/Exclusion, Health Care, and Well-Being in a World in Motion“ (Berlin, GAA Conference 2017)

The Work Group Medical Anthropology organizes the workshop „Embodied Belonging: In/Exclusion, Health Care, and Well-Being in a World in Motion“ at the German Anthropological Association’s Biannual Conference on the theme titled „Belonging: Affective, Moral and Political Practices in an Interconnected World“ (Freie Universität Berlin: 4-7 October, 2017).

Call for Papers

Increasing human mobility and worldwide migration processes of varying scope are provoking new experiences and practices of belonging related to the body, health care, and well-being. This is significant not only for those leaving their home countries and arriving elsewhere as newcomers, but also for the members of so-called ‘host communities’ who are confronted with social and material transformations of their life worlds resulting from large-scale human migration. In this workshop we aim to address how (embodied) belonging is re-imagined, negotiated, contested, practiced, constrained, and (failed to be) achieved in the context of such societal encounters, and which are the effects on involved people’s well-being and health care. In exploring health-related transformations in people’s lives caused by dis- and re-emplacements, we propose embodied belonging as a provisional term to connect social, moral, and political-legal aspects of belonging with its affective and sensorial dimensions. Workshop papers may address but are not restricted to the following questions: How does belonging matter in the suffering, (health) care and well-being of migrants and refugees, but also the homeless, disabled, and otherwise socially disadvantaged among the ‘host communities’? Which are the effects of particular politics of belonging and corresponding administrative regimes on institutional setups of health care provision? What are the consequences with regard to people’s capacities to maintain and re-create a sense of belonging and to sustain their well-being? What is the role of religious and ‘alternative’ healing practices in achieving and sustaining embodied belonging and well-being? How are the body and the senses entangled in perceptions, disruptions, and re-creations of belonging? How are (in)capacities to belong and respective consequences for people’s well-being shaped along lines of social division such as gender, age, religious affiliation, ethnicity, and legal status?

Workshop organizers: Claudia Lang and Dominik Mattes

Please send a text of max. 1.200 characters (incl. spaces) and also a short version of max. 300 characters (incl. spaces) directly to the workshop organizers.

Email: dominik.mattes@fu-berlin.de

Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 15-02-2017

 Call for Workshops DGV-Tagung „Zugehörigkeiten: Affektive, moralische und politische Praxen in einer vernetzten Welt“ (4.-7.10.2017, Freie Universität Berlin)
Call for Workshops
Die nächste DGV-Konferenz mit dem Thema „Zugehörigkeiten: Affektive, moralische und politische Praxen in einer vernetzten Welt“ findet vom 4.-7.10.2017 an der Freien Universität Berlin statt. Mit diesem Thema wollen die Organisator_innen den Blick auf die vielfältigen (Neu-)Verortungen richten, mit denen sich Menschen in den mobilen, mediatisierten und vernetzten Gesellschaften des 21. Jahrhunderts zueinander in Beziehung setzen – sowie sich gleichzeitig in ihre jeweiligen Lebenswelten einbinden. Gleichzeitig sollen die vielschichtigen Dynamiken des Ausschlusses und der Grenzziehung in den Fokus rücken, die Artikulationen und Praxen der Zugehörigkeit entgegenstehen oder durch diese produziert werden und die damit Potenziale für Reibung und Konflikt im Ringen um affektives, moralisches und politisches „Verortetsein“ implizieren. Die Arbeits- und Regionalgruppen sowie alle Mitglieder der DGV sind dazu eingeladen, Vorschläge für Workshops einzureichen. Der Call for Workshops ist hier zu finden. Deadline für das Einreichen von Workshop-Vorschlägen ist der 1.9.2016.

Webseite der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde: LINK

Vollständiger Call for Workshops: PDF

CfP „Transfigurationen: medizin macht gesellschaft macht medizin“ (17.-18.02.2017, Universität Basel)
Call for papers
Im Februar 2017 veranstalten MedizinethnologInnen aus der Schweiz, Österreich und Deutschland gemeinsam eine Tagung, die unter dem Titel „Transfigurationen: medizin macht gesellschaft macht medizin“ stehen wird. Im Mittelpunkt der Konferenz stehen die Neu- und Rekonfigurationen, die sich in den Bereichen Medizin, Gesundheit und Heilung in den letzten Dekaden aufgrund sich ändernder ökonomischer, rechtlicher, technologischer und politischer Konstellationen neu ergeben haben. Neben dem expliziten Fokus auf die Verkörperung all dieser Prozesse – die konstitutiv für Handlungsweisen und Neuordnungen in Bezug auf Gesundheit, Medizin und wellbeing in einer vernetzten Welt sind – mobilisiert die Tagung insbesondere den Begriff der „Transfigurationen“ für das Nachdenken über Prozesse kultureller und sozialer Transformation. Der Begriff der Transfigurationen fasst dabei lokal spezifische Momente und Prozesse der Veränderung jenseits von Vorstellungen gesteuerter Entwicklung, und trägt dennoch globalisierenden Dynamiken der Ökonomisierung, Verrechtlichung und Technisierung von Medizin, Gesundheit und Heilung Rechnung. Mit diesem Begriff, der in der (Medizin-)Ethnologie bislang noch kaum genutzt wird, verknüpfen sich damit sowohl Momente der Festschreibung und eine Perspektive der longue durée, als auch Dimensionen der Flüchtigkeit, Ungewissheit und historischen Offenheit, die mit Neukonfigurationen im Kontext von Medizin und Gesundheit weltweit verbunden sind.
Die Konferenz wird anlässlich des 25-jährigen Jubiläums der Medical Anthropology Switzerland (MAS) der Schweizerischen Ethnologischen Gesellschaft (SEG), des 20-jährigen Bestehens der Arbeitsgruppe Medical Anthropology in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (DGV e.V.) sowie der Etablierung der „Wiener Dialoge der Medizinanthropologie“ im Jahr 2012 durchgeführt. Die Konferenzsprache ist deutsch, englische Präsentationen sind aber ebenfalls sehr willkommen. Um die Zusendung von abstracts (max. 250 Wörter) bis zum 31.10.2016 wird an die folgende Email-Adresse: trinatkonferenz2017@medicalanthropology.ch gebeten. Die Benachrichtigung über die Annahme der abstracts erfolgt bis zum 31.11.2016. Um im Rahmen der Tagung möglichst informierte Diskussionen zu ermöglichen, werden die ausgewählten ReferentInnen darum gebeten, ihre schriftlichen Beiträge (max. 4000 Wörter exklusive Bibliographie) bis 16.1.2017 einzureichen.

Keynote: Andrea Muehlebach (University of Toronto)

Vollständiger Call for Papers: PDF
Tagungswebsite mit Informationen zur Anmeldung: LINK

Panel Program Online: "How 'global' is Global Health? Mobility and (dis)connectivity in the Global Health enterprise"

Panel at the joint conference "MAGic2015: Anthropology and Global Health: interrogating theory, policy and practice", organised by the EASA Medical Anthropology Network and the RAI Medical Anthropology Committee
University of Sussex, UK, 9-11th September 2015
Panel convenors: Dominik Mattes (Freie Universität Berlin); Hansjörg Dilger (Freie Universität Berlin); Kristine Krause (University of Amsterdam)

Panel Program

CFP for the Panel "How 'global' is Global Health? Mobility and (dis)connectivity in the Global Health enterprise"

Panel at the joint conference "MAGic2015: Anthropology and Global Health: interrogating theory, policy and practice", organised by the EASA Medical Anthropology Network and the RAI Medical Anthropology Committee
University of Sussex, UK, 9-11th September 2015
Panel convenors: Dominik Mattes (Freie Universität Berlin); Hansjörg Dilger (Freie Universität Berlin); Kristine Krause (University of Amsterdam)
Deadline for paper proposals: 27th April 2015

Call for papers and paper submission
Mobility and connectivity are central elements of the field of Global Health. Thus, the increasing mobility and connectedness of persons, pathogens, and politics across national and regional boundaries produce often novel health conditions of potentially global urgency. The responses to health issues, in turn, trigger (equally transnational) flows of finances, policies, and medico-technical interventions establishing new types of assemblages with an often strong humanitarian impetus. This panel interrogates how the field of Global Health is „patterned“ by geopolitical power relations, conditions of inequality and vulnerability, and the agendas and strategies of particular actors. Workshop submissions should pay special attention to the phenomena of (dis)connectivity, mobility, directionality, (in)equality and neglect. They may address why certain health conditions become the target of global health interventions while others, that are similarly „urgent“ in terms of morbidity and mortality, do not attract the same medical, political and financial attention? Which (geographic as well as metaphoric) spaces and types of problems remain unmarked in the Global Health landscape? How does the „Global North“ become part of the Global Health paradigm, other than intervening in the health crises of the „Global South“? Do notions of Global Health that pay attention to „austerity“ and „crisis“ in the „Global North“ simply replace geographical boundaries by markers of class, ethnicity or race? Finally, what (new) connectivities are established between the multiple actors of the Global Health enterprise, and how do they produce new solidarities, but also hierarchies and power relations in „South-South“ or „East-West“ cooperations?

Propose paper

From International to Global: Knowledge, Diseases and the Postwar Government of Health

Eröffnungskonferenz des ERC-finanzierten interdisziplinären Projekts GLOBALHEALTH in Paris: 12.-14.02.2015

Beschreibung
Die internationale Konferenz „From international to Global: Knowledge, Diseases and the Postwar Government of Health“ ist die Eröffnungsveranstaltung des ERC-finanzierten interdisziplinären Projekts GLOBHEALTH in Paris (http://globhealth.vjf.cnrs.fr/).

Angesichts der Tatsache, dass in der heutigen globalisierten Welt wesentliche Einflussfaktoren für Gesundheit, Krankheit, medizinische Konzepte, Substanzen und Technologien nicht mehr allein auf (inter-) nationaler Ebene steuer- und beeinflussbar sind, zielt die Konferenz darauf ab, Rück- und Einblicke in aktuelle Herausforderungen globaler Gesundheitsforschung zu gewinnen. Ziel ist es, aus historischer, anthropologischer und soziologischer Perspektive heraus zu eruieren, wie sich medizinische (standardisierte) Praktiken und medizinisches Wissen in einer global vernetzten Welt neu gestalten, und wie die Einflussfaktoren globaler Gesundheit – inklusive der zentralen Rolle der WHO – erforscht und (neu) verstanden werden können.

Drei Aspekte werden im Rahmen dieser Konferenz besonders berücksichtigt: (1) Die historische Einordnung der politisch-ökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen, die eine Transformation von „internationaler“ zu „globaler“ Gesundheit in den letzten drei Dekaden mitgesteuert haben; (2) Der Einbezug lokaler Fallstudien, die ein Verständnis gesundheitsbezogener Phänomene im Kontext der Globalisierung ermöglichen; sowie (3) Die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Machtkonstellationen und ihren Implikationen für gesundheitliche Interventionen und Ressourcen.

Die folgenden vier thematisch fokussierten Panels der Konferenz spiegeln zugleich auch die Arbeitsbereiche des Projekts GLOBHEALTH (mit den regionalen Schwerpunkten Indien und Ostafrika) wider:

Psychiatrie und psychische Gesundheit im Kontext einer globalen Weltgesundheitsagenda
Globale Zirkulation, Industrialisierung und Aneignung traditioneller Medizin aus Asien
Medizinische Genetik und medizinische Tests als globalisierendes Fachgebiet der Länder „des Südens“
Die Rückkehr von Tuberkulose als weltweit vernachlässigter Krankheit und die Globalisierung des DOTS-(Directly Observed Chemotherapy, Short Course) Therapiemanagements

Konferenz-Organisationsteam: Jean-Paul Gaudillière, Anne M. Lovell, Christoph Gradmann, Laurent Pordié, Claire Beaudevin

MAGic2015 "Anthropology and Global Health: interrogating theory, policy and practice"

A joint conference organised by the EASA Medical Anthropology Network and the RAI Medical Anthropology Committee
University of Sussex, UK, 9-11th September 2015
Deadline for panel proposals: 26th February 2015

easaonline

Emotions in/and Medical Anthropology

6th Medical Anthropology Young Scholars (MAYS) Annual Meeting, 11-12 June 2015
Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research

Call for papers
We are proud to announce the 6th annual MAYS encounter among young medical anthropology scholars taking place at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). This year we will explore the relation between medical anthropology and emotions. How do we conceptualize emotions as medical anthropologists? What counts as emotions? Emotions can be enacted and experienced because of disease and illness, but emotions can also become pathologized or seen as vectors of well-being. Emotions can be seen as causing illnesses but they can also result in healing. The analysis of emotions in disease, illness and recovery is linked to an analysis of illness experience and health-seeking actions. How do cultural perceptions shape when the showing of emotions is appropriate and which emotions are culturally accepted/appropriate? How do patients, healers, physicians, caregivers and family members negotiate emotions amongst and between each other? What are the intended and unintended consequences of emotion events and experiences? In a broader sense, how do we mobilize emotions and how do emotions mobilize us into certain actions, influence communication, and navigate us through healthcare systems?

Furthermore, we welcome papers addressing methodological and ethical issues related to emotions. How are emotions present in our work, how do we work with them and embody them in our anthropological practice?

Topics for possible papers/panels can include, but are not limited to:

– Emotions and methodology

– Painful emotions, suffering, trauma etc.

– Joyful emotions, friendship, well-being etc.

– Cultural, ontological differences and emotions

– Emotions aimed toward others: care, compassion and worrying

– Embodied emotion

– Politics of emotions

– Emotion discourses and narratives

Format of the meeting

The conference will have a peer-review structure. We believe this structure is of great value since everyone will have the opportunity to receive feedback and engage with each other’s work, making the encounters most productive. There will be two parallel group sessions, containing eight presentations each. They will include paper presentations of ten
minutes followed by 20 minutes of discussion. Participants will be asked to submit their papers ahead of time so that everybody can read them beforehand. Furthermore, we will assign ‘presenter tandems’. This means that someone else will present your paper and comment on it, and you will be asked to comment on your tandem partner’s paper. This has proven to be a productive format that guarantees each presenter will receive well-founded feedback and typically initiates a constructive discussion. Infos about workshops and a keynote lecture will follow in due time.

Registration fee

There will be a small registration fee of 10 Euros per person to be paid upon arrival to cover expenses for snacks, coffee, etc. We are currently exploring funding possibilities. Unfortunately we will not be able to refund speakers’ travel costs and strongly encourage you to search for funding options in your own institutions.

Time line

We invite you to submit an abstract of max. 300 words. After the notification of acceptance you will be requested to submit your complete paper, which should be no longer than 5,000 words (excluding references).

Abstract submission at mays.easa@gmail.com
Deadline: February 1st 2015
Notification of acceptance: 1st March 2015
Deadline for paper submission: 1st May 2015

We are looking forward to reading and hearing about your research projects and welcoming you in Amsterdam!

MAYS Coordinators

Natashe Lemos Dekker (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research)
Judith Schühle (Freie Universität Berlin)

Panel der AG Medical Anthropology “The making and unmaking of ‘crises’ and ‘emergencies’ in global health”

DGV-Tagung “Krisen. Re-Formationen von Leben, Macht und Welt”
Philipps Universität Marburg: 30.9.-3.10.2015

Call for papers
The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the struggles of the global health bureaucracy and humanitarian community to intervene, and the resistance these efforts were met with locally pose yet another example of the complexity of managing public health crises in an interconnected world. In this workshop we focus on those moments when health issues are defined as crises (unleashing cascades of medico-technical interventions and financial flows) and when they stop being crises or emergencies and are remade into something else. We explore the often highly contested processes of exceptionalizing and normalizing health issues, shed light on the political, social, economic, and cultural factors that influence these processes, and take into view their far reaching social and cultural consequences.
Workshop submissions may address how newly emerging health issues are turned into crises and how they transform conceptualisations of life, health, death and the physical and socio-political body. How are social relations reconfigured and new forms of sociality conceived? How are these changes experienced by individual actors, and do they engender new forms of subjectivity? We also explore what happens when health issues cease to be framed as crises and undergo processes of normalisation, which may entail reduced public, political and financial attention as recently witnessed with regard to HIV/AIDS. How do these shifts manifest themselves in the experience of health experts and the patients and people affected on the ground? Finally, papers may address the overall role of anthropologists in regard to emerging health crises. What perspective do they add to perceptions of health emergencies that are otherwise shaped by biomedicine and epidemiology? How can anthropological views and methods be incorporated more systematically in disease outbreak scenarios? Can anthropologists contribute to public health discourses that determine the emergency of certain medical topics on the global health agenda (and the irrelevance of others)?

Keynote speaker: Prof. Ruth Prince (University of Oslo & Cambridge University)

Please submit both a long version (1,200 characters including spaces max.) and a short version (300 characters including spaces max.) of your abstract to dominik.mattes[at]fu-berlin.de and hansjoerg.dilger[at]berlin.de.

Deadline: 15 February 2015