AGEM
Willkommen bei der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ethnologie und Medizin (AGEM)
Die AGEM ist ein 1970 gegründeter gemeinnütziger Verein mit dem Ziel, die Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Medizin, den angrenzenden Naturwissenschaften und den Kultur‑, Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften zu fördern und dadurch das Studium des interdisziplinären Arbeitsfelds Ethnologie und Medizin zu intensivieren.
Was wir tun
- Herausgabe der Zeitschrift Curare
- Durchführung von Tagungen
- Dokumentation von Literatur und Informationen
Curare
Zeitschrift für Medizinethnologie
Veranstaltungen
Läuft. Die Ausstellung zur Menstruation
Ausstellung
Ausstellung im Museum Europäischer Kulturen (Berlin)
„Läuft. Die Ausstellung zur Menstruation“
06.10.2023 bis 06.10.2024
Museum Europäischer Kulturen – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Etwa 2 Milliarden Menschen auf der Welt menstruieren. Über 1,5 Milliarden weitere Menschen hatten ihre Periode oder werden sie bekommen. Seit rund 10 Jahren nun wird die Menstruation in Europa öffentlich diskutiert. Das MEK präsentiert die Ausstellung dazu.
„Läuft“ zeigt eine Geschichte des Pragmatismus und der Utopien, des Erfindungsreichtums und Aktivismus. Dafür versammelt die Ausstellung rund 100 historische und brandneue Menstruationsartikel sowie Werbeanzeigen. Schaubilder, Interviews und Hands-On-Stationen vermitteln den aktuellen Wissensstand. Mit knapp 200 Alltagsgegenständen, Fotos, Grafiken, Zeitungsartikeln und Social-Media-Posts fächert die Ausstellung die Diskurse auf, die Menstruierende seit Jahrzehnten begleiten: Es geht um Themen wie Leistung, Periodenarmut, Müll, „Normalität“, Naturverbundenheit, Stimmung und einige mehr – und natürlich um Aktivismus! Denn im Zentrum stehen die Stimmen und Erfahrungen von Menstruierenden selbst. Wir laden dazu ein, ihnen in Interviews zu lauschen und sich selbst auszutauschen. Filmausschnitte, Musik und Kunstwerke runden die Ausstellung ab.
Mehr Infos unter http://www.smb.museum/flow.
Francesca Vaghi: “Anything that we can do to help, it’s got to be good”: the everyday pragmatism of NHS charities
Vortrag
Hybrid event/Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health ad hoc seminar
Francesca Vaghi: “Anything that we can do to help, it’s got to be good”: the everyday pragmatism of NHS charities
Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health ad hoc seminar
Tuesday 29th October 2025, 3–4:30pm (online and in-person in the Centre’s boardroom in Queen’s Building, Streatham Campus, University of Exeter).
Crisis no longer seems to represent a momentary state of emergency, but rather an ongoing situation that is continually defining our present. After over a decade of austerity measures in the UK, which have led to cuts in the public sector and rising poverty rates, NHS and other charities have expanded. Examining the work of these organisations offers an interesting example of how the ‘mixed economy of welfare’ works in practice, and how a historically blurry line within the NHS – between what should be state-funded, or simply an ‘add-on’ that can be provided via charitable or voluntary means – is thought of and navigated by different people, at a time of extended crisis. Drawing from an ethnographic case-study in an English city and with an NHS charity, this talk explores the role of the charity in supplementing healthcare while also fulfilling the role of a welfare service. I introduce the idea of everyday pragmatism to explain people’s motivations to work, volunteer, and fundraise for the NHS, informed by Cooper’s work on ‘everyday utopias’ (2014), and ‘prefiguration’ (2016; 2020), and Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (2011). In doing so, I aim to call attention to people actively doing what they can to improve the present moment through day-to-day practices, while imagining, demanding, and waiting for a better future. As opposed to viewing participants as passively accepting, or defeated by, the current situation, everyday pragmatism rather seeks to illuminate how people negotiate ambivalence in an active and participatory manner.
BIO:
Francesca Vaghi is Research Associate at the School of Social & Political Science, University of Glasgow. Working with Professor Ellen Stewart, she conducts research on the work of contemporary NHS charities as part of the Border Crossings project: https://more.bham.ac.uk/border-crossings/border-crossings/projects/ . Francesca completed her PhD in Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, in 2019. This investigated how children create self and peer identities through food and eating practices, how children’s food policy fits into family intervention policies in the context of Britain’s mixed economy of welfare, and how notions of ‘good food’ and ‘good parenting’ (particularly mothering) are interlinked. Her thesis is the basis for her recent (2023) monograph, Food Policy and Practice in Early Childhood Education and Care: Children, Practitioners, and Parents in an English Nursery.
Link to book into the event here: “Anything that we can do to help, it’s got to be good”
Tickets, Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 3:00 PM | Eventbrite
Inequalities in (Mental) Healthcare: Critical Perspectives in Medical Anthropology
Panel
Hybrid event in the frameworks of the World Anthropological Union Congress 2024
Inequalities in (Mental) Healthcare: Critical Perspectives in Medical Anthropology
Panel at World Antrhopological Union Congress 2024
Convenors: Sharon Gabie (Nelson Mandela University, Johannesburgburg, South Africa), Helmar Kurz (University of Muenster, Germany)
When: 11th – 15th November 2024
Cfp deadline: 13 May 2024
Panel Abstract:
(Mental) healthcare systems worldwide meet various challenges, particularly the insufficiency of resources for patients of lower economic classes and rural areas. What is more, in many places therapeutic settings remain “zones of abandonment” (Biehl 2005), particularly when affiliated with official healthcare sectors. However, some philanthropic, religious-spiritual, and private agencies provide “good examples” of (mental) healthcare (Basu et al. 2017).
Changing governments and contesting policies have impacted local, translocal, and global (mental) healthcare supplies, maintaining inconsistencies in (mental) healthcare. Further, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has clearly illustrated that structural violence (Farmer 2005) and chronicity of crisis (Vigh 2008) still shape inequalities in access to health resources in both the Global North and Global South. New challenges may be requests regarding the mental healthcare provision for Indigenous and migratory communities.
In South Africa, a recent case of negligence and maladministration of people with psychiatric disorders is that of Life Esidimeni. The tragedy witnessed 144 people die because of inappropriate care and the lack of equipped infrastructure and staff to cater to the needs of people in mental health care facilities and many more suffering trauma (Durojaye & Agaba 2018, Ferlito & Dhai 2018). South Africa is no exception for the fact, that countries across the globe neglect mental health care as an overall aspect of health and wellbeing. The results of a four-country study, which included South Africa, found that there is a lack of data to convince policymakers to prioritize mental health, a lack of implementation, and how to mobilize people to seek intervention to the problem at an early stage (Pillay 2019). In disadvantaged communities, black communities in particular, the stigma against mental health issues is compounded by cultural and social challenges that prevent many people from seeking early intervention (Gumede 2021).
Philanthropic organizations have always been essential health resources, and not only for marginalized social groups (for the example of Brazilian Spiritism, see Kurz 2024). However, they have been widely ignored in public and academic discourse, and how political institutions contest, regulate, or integrate related approaches remains a research desideratum that this panel wants to address around the following leading questions, focusing on mental health practices but integrating all health-related aspects of human well-being:
1) Strategies between actors. What are the contemporary challenges/opportunities of diverse actors within the field of (mental) health in their particular localities? In which spaces do they intervene? Where are they excluded? What trends can be identified, e.g., in the emergence of new agencies in the field or power distributions among existing actors?
2) Content of action and intervention in the field. What is currently at stake? What are perspectives and practices? How do divergent actors respond to (mental) health challenges?
3) Political regulation. How do state and official healthcare institutions relate to contesting and complementing approaches? Do forms of cooperation exist? Do obstacles exist? What are political strategies at the intersection of political, economic, and social interests?
To submit a paper/abstract, please follow these guidelines: https://waucongress.org/call-for-papers/
The convenors are available for any doubt or question in advance and throughout the CfP process:
Sharon Gabie (Nelson Mandela University, Johannesburgburg, South Africa) sharon_gabie@yahoo.ie
Helmar Kurz (University of Muenster, Germany) helmar.kurz@uni-muenster.de