SANTU PAULU MEU FALLA GUARIRE
2‑Kanal-Videoin­stal­la­tion, 2024, 14 Min.
von Anja Dreschke & Michaela Schäuble

Ausstel­lung RETURN | 17.09. – 6.12.2026
Raut­en­strauch-Joest-Muse­um Köln – Kul­turen der Welt
Cäcilien­straße 29–33
50667 Köln

San­tu Paulu wird im apulis­chen Dialekt der Heilige Paulus genan­nt. Er ist der Schutz­pa­tron all der­er, die von Gift­tieren wie Spin­nen, Sko­r­pi­o­nen und Schlangen gebis­sen wurden.Im südi­tal­ienis­chen katholis­chen Volks­glauben wird der Heilige in Liedern ange­fle­ht, diejeni­gen zu heilen, die sich «wie von der Taran­tel gestochen» gebärde­ten. Der südi­tal­ienis­che Taran­tismus ist ein kul­turelles Phänomen, das von Medi­zin­ern im Mit­te­lal­ter auch als ›Tanzwut‹ oder ›Chore­o­manie‹ beze­ich­net wurde. Betrof­fen waren zumeist Frauen, deren Anfälle und Ekstasen auf den Biss ein­er Gift­spinne zurück­ge­führt wur­den. Heilung ver­sprach die Pizzi­ca (von pizzi­care, jmd. zwick­en), ein ursprünglich ther­a­peutis­ch­er Taran­tel­la-Tanz, bei der die Betrof­fe­nen auf bes­timmte Melo­di­en, Rhyth­men, aber auch auf Far­ben reagierten und oft tage­lang bis zur kom­plet­ten Erschöp­fung tanzen mussten. Im 17. Jahrhun­dert, als die Erforschung des Phänomens einen Höhep­unkt erre­ichte, wurde der Taran­tismus gemein­hin als chorea imag­i­na­tive („imag­i­na­tiv­er Tanz”) oder chorea las­ci­va („spielerisch­er Tanz”) beze­ich­net und auf­grund sein­er Nähe zu dion­y­sis­chen Kul­ten mit Hex­erei in Verbindung gebracht. Bere­its in den früh­esten Quellen wurde die Taran­tel­la als Tanz der Begeis­terten und Besesse­nen beschrieben und als emo­tionaler, verkör­pert­er Aus­druck von Erre­gungs- und Ekstasezustän­den (Manie) gese­hen. Seit den 1950er Jahren gibt es zahlre­iche Film‑, Foto- und Tonauf­nah­men des Phänomens. Heute wird der Taran­tismus, der die Betrof­fe­nen einst stig­ma­tisierte, umgedeutet und öffentlich aufge­führt. Pizzi­ca-Musik und Taran­tel­la-Tänze sind als Teil der lokalen Folk­lore Apuliens zu ein­er wichti­gen kul­turellen und ökonomis­chen Ressource gewor­den: als Touris­ten­spek­takel, als imma­terielles Kul­turerbe und nicht zulet­zt als Strate­gie zur Bewäl­ti­gung indi­vidu­eller und kollek­tiv­er Krisen. Die Instal­la­tion basiert auf der mehrjähri­gen kün­st­lerisch-ethno­grafis­chen Feld­forschung von Anja Dreschke und Michaela Schäu­ble, die auf den Spuren des Taran­tismus Südi­tal­ien bereist und in Archiv­en recher­chiert haben. Sie ist Teil des kol­lab­o­ra­tiv­en Forschung­spro­jek­tes TARANTISM REVISITED.

Mehr Infos zu der Ausstel­lung: https://r‑e-t-u-r‑n.net/en

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CfP for Pan­el at 24th IMISCOE annu­al con­fer­ence: „Unit­ed for Human Rights and Glob­al Equity”
6–9 July 2027
Brus­sels and online

CfPs for the pan­el pro­pos­al below on “The right to (healthy and sus­tain­able) food: an inter­sec­tion­al per­spec­tive on access, inequal­i­ties and lived expe­ri­ences”. Please send your paper pro­pos­als includ­ing a 250-word abstract and the name(s), affiliation(s), and con­tact details of the author(s) by email to Elsa Mescoli e.mescoli@uliege.be and Paula Fer­nan­dez Gar­cia pfgarcia@uliege.be by 21 Sep­tem­ber 2026 at the lat­est. Please also let us know if you are plan­ning to attend the con­fer­ence in Brus­sels or online.

Pan­el proposal

Title: The right to (healthy and sus­tain­able) food: an inter­sec­tion­al per­spec­tive on access, inequal­i­ties and lived experiences.

Con­venors: Elsa Mescoli and Paula Fer­nan­dez Gar­cia (Uni­ver­si­ty of Liège)

Abstract: In recent years, the ques­tion of the right to food has become increas­ing­ly sig­nif­i­cant, with grow­ing eco­log­i­cal and pub­lic health con­cerns prompt­ing the devel­op­ment of a wide range of ini­tia­tives to ensure access to healthy, sus­tain­able food for all. Across Europe and beyond, diverse food tran­si­tion ini­tia­tives have emerged in urban areas, call­ing for changes in res­i­dents’ food pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion prac­tices. These ini­tia­tives, which include social gro­cery stores, sol­i­dar­i­ty pur­chas­ing groups, com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and food social secu­ri­ty schemes, often present them­selves as inclu­sive. They seek to engage pop­u­la­tion groups that are typ­i­cal­ly per­ceived as less involved in food tran­si­tion move­ments than pre­dom­i­nant­ly white, mid­dle-class par­tic­i­pants, due to their socio-eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, with migrants often iden­ti­fied as one of the key tar­get groups.

In this pan­el, we exam­ine the right to healthy and sus­tain­able food from three com­ple­men­tary per­spec­tives. First, we analyse the poli­cies and mech­a­nisms designed to pro­mote broad access to healthy and sus­tain­able food. Sec­ond­ly, we inves­ti­gate how these mech­a­nisms oper­ate in prac­tice, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the bar­ri­ers they gen­er­ate and the inequal­i­ties they repro­duce or rein­force. Third­ly, we explore how peo­ple from dif­fer­ent social back­grounds expe­ri­ence these ini­tia­tives in every­day life.

Adopt­ing an inter­sec­tion­al per­spec­tive and draw­ing on empir­i­cal mate­r­i­al from var­i­ous socio-cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal and geo­graph­i­cal con­texts, the pan­el high­light how social posi­tions shaped by struc­tur­al fac­tors that pro­duce and sus­tain socio-eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties influ­ence dis­cours­es and ini­tia­tives sur­round­ing the right to healthy and sus­tain­able food, along­side the ways in which indi­vid­u­als nav­i­gate (or remain exclud­ed from) them. 

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Invi­ta­tion for open pan­el „ ‚Human­i­tar­i­an Reset,’ Tech­nop­o­l­i­tics and the Infra­struc­tures of Aid”
2026 4S Conference
Toron­to, Canada
Octo­ber 7–10, 2026

Dead­line for sub­mis­sion: April 30, 2026

4S Open Pan­el #111

Orga­niz­ers:
Roda Siad, McGill University
Alphonci­na Lya­muya, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern California

Abstract:
In 2025, the UN’s Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs called for a ‘human­i­tar­i­an reset’ amid pro­lif­er­at­ing crises, ris­ing dis­place­ment, and shrink­ing donor fund­ing. Framed as a rad­i­cal reform moment, the ‘reset’ has emerged as a dom­i­nant term for grap­pling with pro­found sec­tor-wide insti­tu­tion­al stress. Ini­tia­tives such as UN80 and the ‘reset’ are posi­tioned as oppor­tu­ni­ties to reimag­ine how aid is orga­nized and deliv­ered by stream­lin­ing coor­di­na­tion, embrac­ing antic­i­pa­to­ry action, pri­or­i­tiz­ing assis­tance, devolv­ing author­i­ty to local actors, and mobi­liz­ing dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and pri­vate sec­tor part­ner­ships to do “more with less.” Yet these reforms are not mere­ly neu­tral or tech­ni­cal. They rep­re­sent a recon­fig­u­ra­tion of pow­er with­in human­i­tar­i­an sys­tems, enact­ed through the reset as a tech­no-polit­i­cal project.
We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing at the inter­sec­tion of human­i­tar­i­an­ism and sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy stud­ies to exam­ine the reset, its promis­es, under­ly­ing assump­tions, and how it is shaped by, and pro­duc­tive of, technopow­er. We ask: how are aid infra­struc­tures, includ­ing data gov­er­nance sys­tems, cash deliv­ery plat­forms, fore­cast­ing tools, pri­or­i­tized aid mech­a­nisms, and account­abil­i­ty frame­works, being redesigned under con­di­tions of aus­ter­i­ty and urgency? What sociotech­ni­cal imag­i­nar­ies shape reforms pro­posed under the reset, and how are they entan­gled with ideas of effi­cien­cy, exper­tise, inno­va­tion, mar­ket log­ics, and new forms of pub­lic-pri­vate author­i­ty? How do calls to “shift pow­er clos­er to com­mu­ni­ties” inter­sect with expand­ing tech­no­log­i­cal medi­a­tion and data-inten­sive sys­tems that may simul­ta­ne­ous­ly enable and under­mine local agency?
This pan­el fore­grounds the reset as an ongo­ing, con­test­ed process rather than a set­tled reform agen­da. Con­tri­bu­tions may engage empir­i­cal­ly, the­o­ret­i­cal­ly, or con­cep­tu­al­ly with top­ics includ­ing local­iza­tion and account­abil­i­ty, antic­i­pa­to­ry action and ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems, pro­tec­tion issues, human­i­tar­i­an-cor­po­rate col­lab­o­ra­tion, activism, and advo­ca­cy under shrink­ing human­i­tar­i­an foot­prints. We wel­come sub­mis­sions explor­ing ten­sions between effi­cien­cy and care, inno­va­tion and jus­tice, decen­tral­iza­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty-shift­ing, and tech­no­crat­ic exper­tise and lived experiences.

Sub­mis­sion guide­lines and addi­tion­al pan­el details (pan­el #111) can be found here.

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