„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.

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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

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Aca­d­e­m­ic paper work­shop and spe­cial issue on „The­o­riz­ing through the mun­dane: sto­ry­ing trans­for­ma­tions in healthcare”
Depart­ment of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Zurich, Switzerland.
04–06.06.2025
Dead­line: 01.12 2024

Details:
As a ‘big sto­ry’ con­cern, trans­for­ma­tions in health­care abound: dig­i­tal­iza­tion and the intro­duc­tion of AI, major demo­graph­ic trans­for­ma­tions, antimi­cro­bial resis­tances, soar­ing health­care staff short­ages, the emer­gence of trans­gen­der care, the ‘cri­sis’ of mater­ni­ty and neona­tal care, and ever increas­ing health inequal­i­ties are just a few of them. This work­shop and spe­cial issue respond to such ‘big sto­ry’ con­cerns in health­care by the­o­riz­ing through ‘the mundane’.

STS has a long tra­di­tion – with dif­fer­ent begin­nings – of attend­ing to and the­o­riz­ing through ‘the mun­dane’. Think about for exam­ple the mun­dane­ness of infra­struc­tur­al work (Bowk­er and Star 1999), the fleet­ing­ly sub­tle ‘here-and-now’ (Ver­ran 1999), the every­day­ness of mar­gin­al­iz­ing ‘invis­i­ble work’ (Star/Strauss 1989) and Latour’s doorstop­per (Johnson/Latour 1988). More recent­ly, it has been cen­tral to ‘care stud­ies’ and ‘main­te­nance and repair stud­ies’ marked through an atten­tion to ‘dai­ly life matters’
and ‘tin­ker­ing’ (Mol et al. 2010), ‘exno­va­tion’ (Mes­man 2008), ‘every­day ethics’ (Pols 2023), the eas­i­ly deval­ued as ethico-polit­i­cal com­mit­ment (Puig de la Bel­la­casa 2011), and over­looked sit­u­a­tions that take place in inter­stices of rou­tine and break­down (Denis et al. 2015).

In this work­shop and spe­cial issue, we are draw­ing upon and extend­ing these rich STS accounts on ‘the mun­dane’ to empir­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate, think about and exper­i­ment with how STS schol­ars can relate to and inter­vene in ‘trans­for­ma­tions’ in health­care. After, or in addi­tion to, the ana­lyt­i­cal sen­si­tiv­i­ties and con­cerns that have been devel­oped in the care debate (Lindén and Lydahl 2021; Mol, Moser, Pols 2021; Mar­tin, Myers, Viseu 2015; Puig de la Bel­la­casa 2011) and the field of val­u­a­tion stud­ies (Dus­sauge, Helges­son, Lee 2015), which have dom­i­nat­ed research on health­care in STS over the past decade, the spe­cial issue seeks to – empir­i­cal­ly, ana­lyt­i­cal­ly, and polit­i­cal­ly – take the next step. ‘The­o­ris­ing through the mun­dane’ offers a ver­sion of STS that stays respon­sive to the ways we are liv­ing, dying and car­ing for bod­ies and dis­eases, and their trans­for­ma­tions, in the first half of the 21st cen­tu­ry; it offers an STS that trans­forms with and through these ways now, here, and in the future.

The work­shop and spe­cial issue wel­comes papers with an empir­i­cal focus on health­care in the large sense. The con­tri­bu­tions will explore ques­tions such as:

– What counts as ‘mun­dane’ in par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tions, sites, prac­tices of healthcare?
– How does an atten­tion to ‘the mun­dane’ allow us to trans­form ‘big sto­ries’ about cur­rent trans­for­ma­tions in healthcare?
– How does ‘the mun­dane’ allow us to attend to modes of liv­ing and dying well?
– How to stay atten­tive to asym­met­ri­cal con­fig­u­ra­tions and the non-inno­cence of ‘the mundane’?
– How does the lens of the mun­dane trans­form and extend STS theorizing?

The work­shop will take place from the 4th to the 6th June 2025 at the Depart­ment of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Zurich. Par­tic­i­pants need to sub­mit a paper draft before­hand, which will be dis­cussed dur­ing the work­shop. On the third day, we will engage in
alter­na­tive for­mats (walk­ing, writ­ing, etc.) to think through the mundane.

The spe­cial issue will be based on the work­shop and sub­mit­ted to a major STS jour­nal (cur­rent­ly envis­aged S&TS).

If this speaks to you and you are inter­est­ed in sub­mit­ting a con­tri­bu­tion to the work­shop and spe­cial issue or only to the spe­cial issue, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words before the 1st Decem­ber 2024 to: theorising_through_the_mundane@etik.com
If you have fur­ther ques­tions, do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us. We are look­ing for­ward to receiv­ing your contribution.

Time­line:
2024 Decem­ber 1: Open call for con­tri­bu­tions closes
2024 Decem­ber 31: Deci­sions of edi­tors on who will par­tic­i­pate in work­shop and/or SI & com­mu­ni­ca­tion of deci­sion to applicants
2025 Begin­ning May: Sub­mis­sion of paper draft for workshop
2025 June 4–6: Work­shop in Zurich (day 1 & 2 for dis­cus­sion of paper drafts, day 3 with alter­na­tive for­mats for think­ing through the mundane)
2025 Sep­tem­ber 30: Sub­mis­sion paper to a major STS jour­nal (cur­rent­ly envis­aged: S&TS)

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