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Visual Expressions of Health, Illness and Healing

Visu­al­iza­tion of med­ical top­ics to com­mu­ni­cate aspects of health, suf­fer­ing, dis­eases and ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tion may be used in dif­fer­ent ways. Depend­ing on set­ting, pur­pose and audi­ence, images may be cre­at­ed not only as a didac­tic tool in order to explain med­ical con­tent. Embed­ded in their respec­tive social and wider con­texts, artists around the world use their works to draw atten­tion to social and dis­ease-relat­ed suf­fer­ing. Depic­tion can be done in the con­text of ther­a­py, in the edu­ca­tion­al train­ing of prospec­tive med­ical pro­fes­sion­als root­ed in their med­ical cul­tures as well as on a broad­er soci­etal stage. Sim­ple sketch­es, vivid comics, elab­o­rate paint­ings or com­put­er-aid­ed sim­u­la­tions, to name just a few pos­si­bil­i­ties, are used to direct­ly illus­trate top­ics that are often dif­fi­cult to access through lan­guage alone. They not only facil­i­tate under­stand­ing, but also enable aware­ness of and dis­cus­sion about top­ics rel­e­vant to health. Pic­tures or draw­ings of the inner state and oth­er visu­al tools can make it eas­i­er for patients to demon­strate and artic­u­late their psy­cho­log­i­cal or phys­i­cal com­plaints and body perception.

We will explore the many ways of visu­al expres­sion in the con­text of heal­ing and look at options of their use for indi­vid­ual heal­ing, edu­ca­tion or social aware­ness. This also rais­es the ques­tion of which type of visu­al­i­sa­tion is appeal­ing to whom. The con­fer­ence shall be aligned inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and trans­dis­ci­pli­nary with a focus on visu­al med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy and tran­scul­tur­al med­ical human­i­ties. Researchers, artists, cura­tors, health pro­fes­sion­als as well as patients and their rel­a­tives are invit­ed to con­tribute with their expe­ri­ence and exper­tise. The AGEM meet­ing 2022 will be a con­tin­u­a­tion of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing „Aes­thet­ics of Heal­ing: Work­ing with the Sens­es in Ther­a­peu­tic Con­texts” which took place in 2019.

It is the aim of the orga­niz­ers that the con­fer­ence will be a trib­ute to Prof. Armin Prinz (1945–2018), physi­cian and anthro­pol­o­gist, who was the first Pro­fes­sor of Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy (Eth­nomedi­zin) in Aus­tria and a spe­cial­ist for visu­al med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy. He found­ed the Aus­tri­an Eth­nomed­ical Soci­ety (Öster­re­ichis­che Eth­nomedi­zinis­che Gesellschaft) and estab­lished a col­lec­tion of numer­ous eth­nomed­ical objects and paint­ings, which were donat­ed to the Welt­mu­se­um Wien in 2017.

Questions and topics of interest

• How are health top­ics rep­re­sent­ed visu­al­ly in par­tic­u­lar med­ical cultures?
• How do artists illus­trate dis­ease-relat­ed issues in their work?
• What images do patients use to express their complaints?
• What images do doc­tors and heal­ers use to com­mu­ni­cate diag­noses, med­ical con­cepts, and ther­a­peu­tic interventions?
• What form of vis­i­bil­i­ty is help­ful for those affected?
• How should images of dis­ease and ther­a­py be shown in exhibitions?
• What role do images play in teach­ing med­ical knowl­edge in edu­ca­tion, ther­a­py and pub­lic health.
• What visu­al means do med­ical cul­tures use to illus­trate com­plex con­tent in education?
• Visu­al doc­u­men­ta­tion of heal­ing rit­u­als and cer­e­monies: films, pho­tos or paintings
• Demon­stra­tion of health issues through per­for­mance and theatre
• Visu­al expres­sions of struc­tur­al vio­lence in pub­lic health
• The pow­er of images: illit­er­a­cy and health education
• Visu­al med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy in museums
• Med­ical comics and med­ical graphics

Please down­load the pro­gram here.

 

General information

Con­fer­ence lan­guage: English

The con­fer­ence is orga­nized by the Öster­re­ichis­che Eth­nomedi­zis­che Gesellschaft (ÖEG) in coop­er­a­tion with Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft Eth­nolo­gie und Medi­zin (AGEM) and Welt­mu­se­um Wien.

It will be orga­nized by Katha­ri­na Sabernig (Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na), Doris Burtsch­er (Médecins sans Fron­tières) and Ruth Kutalek (Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna).

Fur­ther coop­er­a­tions are planned with the fol­low­ing part­ners: Work­ing Group for His­to­ry of Med­i­cine and Med­ical Human­i­ties of the ÖAW, ISA (Insti­tute for Social Anthro­pol­o­gy of the ÖAW), Insti­tute of Cul­tur­al and Social Anthro­pol­o­gy (IKSA) of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­fer­ence is free of charge for pre­sen­ters, but reim­burse­ment of trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion expens­es is not cov­ered by the con­fer­ence and will be borne by the participant.

A pub­li­ca­tion of select­ed con­tri­bu­tions in the jour­nal Curare is planned.

Helden­platz, 1010 Wien: Forum

Active par­tic­i­pants, stu­dents, unem­ployed, ÖEG and AGEM mem­bers: free entrance con­fer­ence fee: € 50, day tick­et: € 20 (Öster­re­ichis­che Eth­nomedi­zinis­che Gesellschaft, Dr. Ruth Kutalek: IBAN: AT49 2011 1000 0334 5394)

Reg­is­tra­tion required. Please con­tact Katha­ri­na Sabernig at katharina.sabernig@meduniwien.ac.at

Link to this event

Full details here and draft pro­gramme: https://www.edcma.sps.ed.ac.uk/news-events/event/pluralizing-global-mental-health-care-crisis-and-critique

Reg­is­tra­tion link: https://www.epay.ed.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/college-of-humanities-and-social-science/school-of-social-and-political-sciences/school-of-social-and-political-science/pluralizing-global-mental-health-care-crisis-and-critique

Reg­is­tra­tion £30; £0 for stu­dents, low/unwaged, pre­car­i­ous­ly employed, and peo­ple resid­ing in low- and mid­dle-income countries.

Link to this event

Date: Fri­day 10th June 2022

Time: 10:00 ‑15:30 Lon­don Time (BST)

Loca­tion: hybrid

Room: WATERLOO WBW G/552 (Free Lunch and refreshments)

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+44 20 3787 4277„897610283#   Unit­ed King­dom, London

Phone Con­fer­ence ID: 897 610 283#

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The sym­po­sium is open to any­one inter­est­ed in decolonis­ing knowl­edge pro­duc­tion in the high­er edu­ca­tion.  Please reg­is­ter your atten­dance here so that we can order refresh­ments: [ signup sheet]

 

Please reg­is­ter on Eventbrite by 5th June 2022.

There are three cen­tral themes which we hope will guide the Symposium:

Decolonis­ing our Curriculum
Decolonis­ing Research Method­olo­gies and Practices
Decolonis­ing our Ped­a­gogy and Teach­ing Practices

Pro­gramme and speakers

The Decolonis­ing Knowl­edge sym­po­sium is a hybrid event (see pro­gramme below)

A pan­el of guest speak­ers will intro­duce the decolonis­ing cur­ricu­lum and research method­ol­o­gy ini­tia­tives with exam­ples from the glob­al North and South universities.

 

We are thrilled to have the fol­low­ing insight­ful speak­ers pre­sent­ing at our symposium

Hári Sewell : Hári Sewell is the founder and Direc­tor of  HS Con­sul­tan­cy and a leader in social jus­tice and equal­i­ty. He has held senior roles in the health sec­tor such as exec­u­tive direc­tor of health and social care in the NHS. He has authored many books on equal­i­ty and social jus­tice, includ­ing “work­ing with eth­nic­i­ty: Race and Cul­ture in men­tal health”.   

 Nyaradza­yi Gum­bonz­van­da: is a Zim­bab­wean human rights lawyer with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in con­flict res­o­lu­tion and medi­a­tion. For over two decades, Nyaradza­yi has worked to advance women and children’s human rights with a par­tic­u­lar focus in con­flict regions address­ing vio­lence against women, and repro­duc­tive rights among oth­ers. Over the years, Nyaradza­yi has sev­ered as the gen­er­al sec­re­tary for World YWCA, worked with UNICEF and UNIFEM for about sev­en years and var­i­ous oth­er gov­ern­ment and non-gov­ern­ment institutions.

Johan­nah Keike­lame:  Johan­nah is a qual­i­ta­tive researcher with spe­cial inter­est in con­ver­sa­tions on decolonis­ing research method­olo­gies espe­cial­ly on con­duct­ing research among the mar­gin­al­ized and vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion groups. She obtained her PhD in Psy­chol­o­gy from Stel­len­bosch Uni­ver­si­ty, in Cape Town, South Africa. Her qual­i­ta­tive doc­tor­al research project explored per­spec­tives and sub­jec­tive expe­ri­ences of peo­ple with epilep­sy and their car­ers in a Black urban town­ship in Cape Town. Her doc­tor­al man­u­script style- the­sis has sev­en co-authored pub­lished peer reviewed arti­cles in local and inter­na­tion­al jour­nals.  After com­plet­ing her PhD, she obtained a Con­soli­doc Award from the Stel­len­bosch Uni­ver­si­ty Research, Inno­va­tion, and  Post­grad­u­ate stud­ies and was admit­ted for the post-doc­tor­al research fel­low posi­tion in the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy. At the end of her fel­low­ship, she suc­cess­ful­ly pub­lished her most inter­est­ing papers on decol­o­niz­ing research meth­ods in accred­it­ed peer reviewed inter­na­tion­al jour­nals –   Glob­al Health Action and the Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal of Social Research Method­ol­o­gy. She was also invit­ed by Dr Isabelle Uny and Dr Rachel O’Donnell of Stir­ling Uni­ver­si­ty to give a vir­tu­al pre­sen­ta­tion  in their SGSS sum­mer school ses­sion on  ‘decolonis­ing Qual­i­ta­tive research Meth­ods” in June 2021.

Mar­lon Mon­crieffe: Dr Mon­crieffe is a prin­ci­pal lec­tur­er and social sci­ences and human­i­ties researcher at Brighton Uni­ver­si­ty. He is an expe­ri­enced speak­er and writer in decolonis­ing cur­ricu­lum and knowl­edge pro­duc­tion in high­er edu­ca­tion. His research uses nar­ra­tives and bio­graph­i­cal approach­es to explore the themes of decoloni­sa­tion in acad­e­mia and sports­man­ship and bring to light the struc­tures shap­ing cur­ricu­lum design and its impact on equal­i­ty.    

 

The Pro­gramme

10:00- 10:15 Wel­come from the organisers

10:15–11:00 Johan­nah Keike­lame.  Pre­sen­ta­tion title ‘Dig­ging into issues of pow­er, trust, respect, and cul­ture and how they can inform a  decol­o­niz­ing research process’- A crit­i­cal reflec­tion from fieldwork.

11:00–11-15 Break

11:15–12:00 Nyaradza­yi Gum­bonzvan­da. Pre­sen­ta­tion title: TBC

12:00–12:45 Lunch

12:45–13:30 Hári Sewell- Pre­sen­ta­tion Title: White­ness Cen­tred By Design: Account­abil­i­ty, Meth­ods and Col­lec­tive Action in Decol­o­niz­ing Education

13:30–13:45 Break

13:45–14:30 Mar­lon Mon­crieffe. Pre­sen­ta­tion Title: Decolonis­ing Cur­ricu­lum Knowl­edge through evi­denced-informed research and the pro­duc­tion of teacher CPD materials

14:30–15:15 Ple­nary discussion

15:15 Clos­ing

If you have any query please contact

nancy.k.tamimi@kcl.ac.uk

mariama.jallow@kcl.ac.uk

Link to this event

The world today is haunt­ed by dreams and anx­i­eties about tech­nol­o­gy and the brain, from the role of com­pa­nies such as Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca in elec­tions to hyper­cap­i­tal­ist visions of seam­less con­sumerism and con­cerns about the pow­er of ‘behav­iour mod­i­fi­ca­tion’ in a world ‘sur­veil­lance cap­i­tal­ism’. More broad­ly, pro­found assump­tions of tech­nol­o­gy as a form of stim­u­lat­ing ‘input’ lead­ing to emo­tion­al arousal in a com­put­er-like brain, a stim­u­lus-response mech­a­nism akin to an elec­tric charge, are at the heart of much of both the defence and cri­tique of the emerg­ing dig­i­tal world.

How­ev­er, fears about the pow­er of mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy to make human sub­jects into the pup­pets of unseen mas­ters to manip­u­late whole pop­u­la­tions are not a new phe­nom­e­non. Twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry anx­i­eties draw on decades of dis­course on dif­fer­ent types of tech­nol­o­gy as vehi­cles for brain­wash­ing, hyp­no­sis or mind con­trol tech­niques, adding a tech­no­log­i­cal angle to tra­di­tions of ‚mag­i­cal’ objects sup­pos­ed­ly able to ‚enchant’ oth­ers. In con­texts as diverse as Enlight­en­ment Mes­merism, psy­chi­atric diag­noses relat­ed to ‚Influ­enc­ing Machines,’ Cold War Behav­iourist mod­els of stim­u­lat­ed sub­jects, Crit­i­cal The­o­ry denun­ci­a­tions of the ‚Cul­ture Indus­try’ and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about every­thing from TV to 5G net­works, the notion of tech­nol­o­gy as a means of mind con­trol has had a pow­er­ful attraction.

This con­fer­ence will exam­ine this shift­ing dis­course, look­ing at the role of tech­no­log­i­cal, cul­tur­al, ide­o­log­i­cal and med­ical fac­tors in fram­ing fears about cul­ture, tech­nol­o­gy and indi­vid­ual autonomy.

A full pro­gramme is avail­able now! The excit­ing list of speak­ers includes:

James Ken­n­away, Maarten Derk­sen, Bernd Boe­sel, Mike Jay, Rebec­ca Lemov, Natascha Dow Schull, Ken­neth White, Antho­ny Ems, Marc Tuters, Pas­cal Rousseau, Andreas Killen, Fleur Hop­kins and Jef­frey Sconce. There will be a num­ber of places avail­able for non-speak­ers to attend in per­son for a very small fee. Par­tic­i­pa­tion via Zoom will also be pos­si­ble, for free.

Please con­tact james.kennaway@rug.nl if you would like to join us.

Pro­gramm

16 June 2022

13:00–14:00 / Registration/lunch

14:00–15:30 Pan­el 1- British Mind Control

Mike Jay, “Mind Control’s Patient Zero: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom”

Rho­dri Hay­ward, (Queen Mary, Lon­don), TBA

15:30–15:45 / Tea and coffee

15:45–17:15 Pan­el 2 – Brain Control

Rebec­ca Lemov (Har­vard), “Just Because They’re After You: The Return of Brain Con­trol in Anti-Vio­lence Sci­en­tif­ic Cru­sades of the 1970s.”

Antho­ny Enns (Dal­housie), “Brain Con­trol: The Weaponiza­tion of Psy­chotech­nolo­gies in Cold War Science.”

17:15–17:30 / Tea and coffee

17:30–19:00 Pan­el 3 – Mind Con­trol and Capitalism

Bernd Bösel (Pots­dam), “The Spec­tre of Dig­i­tal Mind Con­trol: Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Sur­veil­lance Cap­i­tal­ism and its Critics.”

Natasha Dow Schull (NYU), “Cus­tom Mind Con­trol: Per­son­al­ized Volatil­i­ty in Dig­i­tal Gambling.”

19:15 / Din­ner – Bistro ‘t Gerecht

17 June 2022

12:00–12:15 / Lunch

12:15–13:45 Pan­el 4 – Control

Maarten Derk­sen (Gronin­gen), “Con­trol out of Control.”

Marc Tuters (Ams­ter­dam), The Con­cept of ‘Con­trol’ in Media The­o­ry and Con­spir­a­cy The­o­ry about the Internet.”

13:45–14:00 / Tea and coffee

14:00–16:15 Pan­el 5 – Cul­tures of Mind Control

Fleur Hop­kins-Lofer­on (Paris), “Par­a­site Cul­ture: Host Manip­u­la­tion in SF Imag­i­nary (1980–2020).”

James Ken­n­away (Gronin­gen), “Tech­nol­o­gy and Enchant­ment: Musi­cal Mind Con­trol in Con­spir­a­cy Theory.”

Ken­neth White (Bing­ham­ton), “Hyper­ven­ti­la­tion Syn­drome: Media Cul­tures, Con­trol Societies—circa 1970.”

16:15–16:30 / Tea and coffee

16:30–18:00 Pan­el 6 – Paranoia

Andreas Killen (City Col­lege), “Stro­bo­scope and the Para­noid Style.”

Jef­frey Sconce (North­west­ern), “Field and Stream in Para­noid Ideation.”

Kon­takt
E‑Mail: james.kennaway@rug.nl

https://www.rug.nl/research/research-let/expertisecentra/groningen-centre-for-health-and-humanities/upcoming-conference-hacking-the-brain-histories-of-technology-and-mind-control-16–17-june‑2

 

 

–

Link to this event

Seit nun­mehr zwei Jahren prägt die glob­ale COVID-19-Pan­demie als größte gesellschaftliche Krise seit dem Zweit­en Weltkrieg das öffentliche und pri­vate Leben, und in beson­derem Maße den Gesund­heits­bere­ich. Sie führt uns vor Augen, wie ver­flocht­en die Welt miteinan­der ist, wirft Fra­gen nach Ver­ant­wor­tung, Sol­i­dar­ität und Human­ität auf – denkt man etwa an die Ver­sorgung der Entwick­lungslän­der mit Impf­stof­fen, medi­zinis­ch­er Schutzk­lei­dung oder Medika­menten und hat, auch abseits poli­tis­ch­er Debat­ten und Entschei­dun­gen, unseren All­t­ag stark verändert.

Zeitlich gese­hen lässt uns die Pan­demie ein immenses Aus­maß spüren: Während man anfangs noch ein rasches Ende der Ein­schränkun­gen erhoffte, so lehrt uns die aktuelle Sit­u­a­tion, dass die durch die Pan­demie aus­gelösten Krisen uns selb­st nach Eindäm­mung der hohen Virus­last beschäfti­gen wer­den. Eine Welle fol­gt der anderen und der Über­gang in die Endemie ist in Deutsch­land weit­er­hin ungewiss, gle­ich­wohl die Debat­te um den sog. „Free­dom Day“ medi­al die Stim­mung erhitzt. Während einiges im All­t­ag träge erscheint, so mussten etwa im Gesund­heitssek­tor viele drin­gende Fra­gen in sehr kurz­er Zeit gek­lärt wer­den, sei es die anfänglichen Lock­down-Regelun­gen, die Impf­stof­fverteilung, Reisebeschränkun­gen sowie eine mögliche Imp­fimpflicht bzw. Anpas­sung der Impf­stoffe an neue Virus­vari­anten (eine Lang­fas­sung des Calls find­en Sie im ange­hängten pdf)

Die Covid-19-Pan­demie zeigt sich als ein mul­ti­di­men­sion­ales Phänomen, das sich aus viel­er­lei Rich­tun­gen beforschen lässt. Die hier anzukündi­gende Net­zw­erk­ta­gung möchte sich mit speziellen medikalen All­t­agswel­ten beschäftigen.

Arbeitsfragen des Netzwerktreffens

Fokussieren möcht­en wir mit dem aktuellen Net­zw­erk­tr­e­f­fen die kul­turellen, sozialen und anthro­pol­o­gis­chen Verän­derun­gen im Rah­men gesund­heit­srel­e­van­ter All­t­ags­the­men, die sich durch die Maß­nah­men zur Eindäm­mung der Pan­demie ergeben haben:

Wie wur­den soziale Iso­la­tion und Entkräf­tung beispiel­sweise in „Lock­down-Zeit­en“ ver­ar­beit­et? Welche kör­per­lichen, seel­is­chen und emo­tionalen Spuren der Erschöp­fung zeigen sich bei Einzel­nen und sozialen Grup­pen? Wie wurde emo­tionale wie kör­per­liche Be- und Über­las­tung beispiel­sweise in Gesund­heits­berufen und anderen „sys­tem­rel­e­van­ten“ Berufen erfahren?
Welche Auswirkun­gen hat­ten eigene oder Covid-19-Erkrankun­gen im per­sön­lichen Umfeld auf die eigene Lebenswelt?
Welche (alter­na­tiv­en) Möglichkeit­en der Erhol­ung oder Regen­er­a­tion wurden/werden genutzt? Welche Möglichkeit­en der Resilienz kon­nten aktiviert werden?
Welche Ver­suche und Nor­mal­isierungsstrate­gien wer­den in konkreten All­t­agswel­ten unter­nom­men, „mit dem Virus zu leben“? Welche Verän­derun­gen haben sich im sozialen und kul­turellen Umgang im All­t­ag etabliert?
Welche Auswirkun­gen hat die lange Pan­demiesi­t­u­a­tion auf chro­nis­che Erkrankungen?
Wie wer­den medi­ale Infor­ma­tio­nen und sub­jek­tive Erfahrungswel­ten im Umgang mit Covid-19 ver­ar­beit­et und in konkreten All­t­a­gen verhandelt?
Auf welche Konzepte von Sol­i­dar­ität, Ver­ant­wor­tung, und Ver­trauen wird in Krisen­zeit­en rekurriert?

Dies sind nur einige grobe Charak­ter­isierun­gen, deren inhaltliche-funk­tionale Dimen­sion in medikalen All­t­a­gen The­ma der hier anzukündi­gen Net­zw­erk­ta­gung sein können.

Das 19. DGEKW-Net­zw­erk­tr­e­f­fen 2022 ist gle­ich­sam das erste Tre­f­fen seit Pan­demiebe­ginn. Selb­stver­ständlich sollte sich bei aller Ermü­dungser­schei­n­ung ob des The­mas dieses Tre­f­fen daher wis­senschaftlich der Pan­demie wid­men, um aus kul­tur- und medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­ch­er Per­spek­tive einen Blick auf die ver­gan­genen zwei Jahre zu werfen.Angesprochen sind wie immer Wissenschaftler*innen aus den Bere­ichen der Europäis­che Ethnologie/Kulturanthropologie, Medi­z­inan­thro­polo­gie und ‑eth­nolo­gie, Sozi­olo­gie, Geschichte, Geschlechter­forschung, Medi­zin, Medi­en­wis­senschaften und anderen Diszi­plinen, die sich aus kul­tursen­si­bler Per­spek­tive mit diesen Fra­gen auseinandersetzen.

Darüber hin­aus spricht das Net­zw­erk ins­beson­dere Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen an sich am inter­diszi­plinären Aus­tausch zu beteili­gen. Wie auch bei den ver­gan­genen Tagun­gen sind Kolleg*innen in ver­schiede­nen Qual­i­fizierungsphasen (BA/MA//Dissertation/Habilitation) beson­ders ange­sprochen, ihre Fragestellungen/ Werkstattberichte/ Meth­o­d­en und/oder Ergeb­nisse im Rah­men der Net­zw­erk­ta­gung zum The­ma „Die Ruhe nach dem Sturm? Medikalisierte All­t­age im Zeit­en der Covid-19-Pan­demie“ vorzustellen und zu diskutieren.

Call for Papers

Wir hof­fen, mit dem gewählten The­men­schw­er­punkt viele Kolleg*innen anzus­prechen und bit­ten um entsprechende The­men­vorschläge für Vorträge (ca. 20 min.). Durch die beste­hende Koop­er­a­tion mit AGEM (Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft Eth­nomedi­zin e.V.) beste­ht die Möglichkeit, Vorträge als Zeitschriften­beiträge in der Zeitschrift Curare im Anschluss an die Tagung zu publizieren.

Inter­essierte wer­den gebeten, ihr Vor­trags­the­ma kurz zu skizzieren (500 Wörter) und bis zum 1. Juni 2022 an Sabine Wöh­lke (sabine.woehlke@haw-hamburg.de) oder Anna Palm (apalm.bonn@gmail.com) einzure­ichen.

Auch Anmel­dun­gen zur Teil­nahme ohne Vor­trag sind willkom­men. Das Tre­f­fen soll auf die bekan­nter­maßen entspan­nte und offene wie gle­ichzeit­ig auch arbeitsin­ten­sive Art durchge­führt wer­den und find­et erst­mals in diesem Jahr an der Hochschule für ange­wandte Wis­senschaften (HAW) in Ham­burg in Präsenz (ggf. als hybride Ver­anstal­tung) statt.

Neben dem The­men­schw­er­punkt wird ein Zeit­slot für die Diskus­sion zur Umbe­nen­nung des Net­zw­erkes durchge­führt. Hier­für wer­den wir zeit­nah eine sep­a­rate Mail über den Net­zw­erkverteil­er versenden, so dass sich Ange­hörige des Net­zw­erkes, die nicht an dem Tre­f­fen teil­nehmen, an der Diskus­sion beteili­gen kön­nen. Es wird eine Teil­nah­mege­bühr von 30 Euro für die Verpfle­gung während der Tagung erhoben. Kosten für Reise und Unterkun­ft kön­nen nicht erstat­tet wer­den. Alle Teil­nehmenden erhal­ten zeit­nah Pro­gram­min­for­ma­tio­nen sowie Anreise- und Unterkunftsinformationen.

Link to this event

Keynote speak­ers: Prof. Alvaro Jar­rín (Col­lege of the Holy Cross) and Prof. Jie Yang (Simon Fras­er University)

Far from being sim­ply ‘in the eye of the behold­er,’ beau­ty is a moral­ly laden and deeply social affair intri­cate­ly linked to con­stel­la­tions of pow­er, the imag­i­na­tion of bound­aries and nor­ma­tive regimes. In recent years, schol­ar­ly works have inves­ti­gat­ed a con­sis­tent­ly grow­ing, glob­al beau­ty indus­try and its impact on body images, beau­ty prac­tices and projects of self-mak­ing across the globe. They have shown that, while beau­ty norms and body images cir­cu­late glob­al­ly, they mate­ri­al­ize in par­tic­u­lar set­tings, and that beau­ty mar­kets remain high­ly frag­ment­ed. In this con­fer­ence, we wish to go beyond the debate over the glob­al ver­sus the local dimen­sions of bod­i­ly beau­ty and place the spot­light on the (bio-)political oper­a­tions and pol­i­tics of beau­ty on the lev­el of the state. While images of beau­ty form part of the ide­o­log­i­cal ground­ing and inti­mate oper­a­tion of state pow­er, state prac­tices also shape a great deal of the beau­ty industry’s crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture, for exam­ple, through tax­es and leg­is­la­tion, visu­al tech­nolo­gies and pub­lic policies.

This becomes clear, for exam­ple, by look­ing at the reg­u­la­tion of chem­i­cal ingre­di­ents in cos­met­ic prod­ucts, such as skin whiten­ers or ton­ers; the require­ments for train­ing as a beau­ty ther­a­pist or for open­ing up a beau­ty salon or clin­ic; or def­i­n­i­tions of body mod­i­fi­ca­tions as ‘ther­a­peu­tic’ in con­trast to ‘aes­thet­ic,’ which implies pub­lic health insur­ance cov­er­age and, pos­si­bly, the pub­lic demand to a ‘right to beau­ty’, for exam­ple, in Brazil (Edmonds 2007). State reg­u­la­tions may con­tribute to the pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion or med­ical­iza­tion of the beau­ty sec­tor, but they may also cre­ate black mar­kets and shad­ow economies. They may pro­mote beau­ty as a viable employ­ment niche, or they may con­tribute to fur­ther mar­gin­al­iz­ing those typ­i­cal­ly employed in the sec­tor, name­ly rur­al or migrant women with a work­ing-class background.

More­over, if we under­stand cit­i­zen­ship as con­sti­tut­ed through every­day ‘acts’ rather than for­mal sta­tus (Isin 2008), bod­i­ly appear­ances and visu­al tech­nolo­gies come into view as cru­cial domains in the rela­tion­ship between the state as an actor and its cit­i­zens. Notions such as ‘cos­met­ic cit­i­zen­ship’ (Jar­rín 2017) and ‘aes­thet­ic cit­i­zen­ship’ (Liebelt 2019) have elab­o­rat­ed on beau­ty as a biopo­lit­i­cal field of self-mak­ing and a site of dis­ci­plin­ing, edu­cat­ing and cre­at­ing ‘prop­er’ cit­i­zens through visu­al tech­nolo­gies of sur­veil­lance and recog­ni­tion, includ­ing the recog­ni­tion of ‘strangers’ (Ahmed 2000). This becomes espe­cial­ly clear when look­ing at Chi­na, where mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar invest­ments in beau­ty pageants, salons and train­ing ini­tia­tives by the state form part of a his­tor­i­cal tra­jec­to­ry of ‘somat­ic engi­neer­ing’ (Gim­pel 2013) root­ed in the expec­ta­tion that each cit­i­zen should vis­i­bly embody soci­etal norms such as ‘progress’ and ‘moder­ni­ty’, or ‘aes­thet­ic gov­er­nance’ (Yang 2011). Thus, Jie Yang (2011) analy­ses the grow­ing invest­ments in beau­ty in Chi­na as part of a biopo­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy that func­tions as an aes­thet­ic and affec­tive ped­a­gogy, which cre­ates dom­i­nant norms of appear­ance with­in a het­ero­ge­neous pop­u­la­tion. Visions of appro­pri­ate embod­i­ment are also clear­ly gen­dered. This is exem­pli­fied by the Chi­nese state regulator’s pres­sure on tech com­pa­nies in late 2021 to ban male celebri­ties from tele­vi­sion and video stream­ing sites, many of whom had risen to fame in the pop­u­lar boys’ love fic­tion genre, by argu­ing that they look ‘too girly’.

Con­tem­po­rary beau­ty pol­i­tics are also embed­ded in larg­er con­stel­la­tions of pow­er, as well as his­to­ries of impe­r­i­al and colo­nial vio­lence. Dis­cussing the set­ting up of a Beau­ty Acad­e­my in war-torn Kab­ul by Amer­i­can pro­fes­sion­als, Mimi Thi Nguyen (2011) argues that, in the con­text of human­i­tar­i­an impe­ri­al­ism, beau­ty in the ear­ly 2000s was being ‘recruit­ed to go to war’ in Afghanistan and was becom­ing a new form of glob­al biopow­er. In this con­text, beau­ty assumed a moral and ‘civ­i­liza­tion­al’ dimen­sion on a supra-nation­al scale, albeit backed by state reg­u­la­tion, infra­struc­ture and power. 

In this con­fer­ence, we wish to inves­ti­gate the rela­tion­ship between beau­ty and the state by high­light­ing how state insti­tu­tions and translo­cal regimes of pow­er shape gen­dered norms of appear­ance, but also how the transna­tion­al cir­cu­la­tion of prod­ucts, images and tech­nolo­gies shape the field of beau­ty in rela­tion to state author­i­ties, reg­u­la­tions and ide­olo­gies. By doing so, we intend to build on and extend exist­ing schol­ar­ship on embod­ied aes­thet­ics in the fields of Social and Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy, Crit­i­cal Race Stud­ies, Gen­der and Queer Stud­ies and relat­ed dis­ci­plines. We aim to bring togeth­er ethno­graph­ic and con­cep­tu­al works on process­es of biopo­lit­i­cal dis­ci­pline, con­trol and self-mak­ing in rela­tion to beau­ty norms, pol­i­tics and prac­tices. We are espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in forms of cos­met­ic or aes­thet­ic cit­i­zen­ship as a cen­tral axis of polit­i­cal reg­u­la­tion on the one hand and embod­ied acts for nego­ti­a­tions of somat­ic belong­ing on the other.

We look for­ward to receiv­ing sub­mis­sions that engage with one or more of the fol­low­ing questions:

·        What is the beau­ty sector’s role in the forg­ing of state ide­olo­gies and nation­alisms? How are notions such as (nation­al) progress or moder­ni­ty linked with bod­i­ly norms and aes­thet­ics? What is the role of beau­ty in the rela­tion­al dynam­ic between the prac­tices and rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al images of the state (The­len, Vet­ters and Ben­da-Beck­mann 2018)?

·        What translo­cal geo­gra­phies of pow­er are at work in the inter­play between bod­i­ly self-mak­ing, cit­i­zen­ship and the pol­i­tics of belong­ing? What kind of (state) poli­cies and (visu­al) tech­nolo­gies are used to cre­ate, mon­i­tor and con­trol hege­mon­ic appear­ance norms? How do peo­ple relate to and expe­ri­ence these poli­cies and tech­nolo­gies (e.g., racial profiling)?

·        What are the fault lines in process­es of aes­thet­ic mar­gin­al­iza­tion with­in or between regions, nation states and/or cities? How do they relate to nation­al poli­cies and state reg­u­la­tions, for exam­ple in the health sec­tor? How do tech­niques of visu­al recog­ni­tion affect cit­i­zen and non-cit­i­zen sub­jects along inter­sec­tion­al lines of oppression?

·        How is the body shaped to con­form to hege­mon­ic norms of gen­dered, classed and racial­ized beau­ty, and how do these norms, e.g., of fem­i­nin­i­ty and mas­culin­i­ty, crys­tal­lize in this process?What kinds of somat­ic prac­tices and affects coun­ter­act hege­mon­ic appear­ance norms or are capa­ble of ques­tion­ing and trans­form­ing them? In what ways do these norms affect process­es of aes­thet­ic self-mak­ing, includ­ing process­es of self-disciplining?

·        How do sub­jects more gen­er­al­ly con­tribute to nation­al and/or state projects of craft­ing cit­i­zens (visu­al­ly) and of the dis­ci­plin­ing and mon­i­tor­ing of aes­thet­ic norms? How do they defy or cre­ative­ly rework them towards their own goals?

We intend to pub­lish the con­fer­ence out­comes in the form of an edit­ed vol­ume with a high-rank­ing inter­na­tion­al pub­lish­er. There­fore, papers will be pre-cir­cu­lat­ed one month pri­or to our meet­ing, and every­body is asked to read everybody’s paper before arrival. Based on these read­ings, we will dis­cuss and thor­ough­ly engage with each other’s work dur­ing the con­fer­ence, rather than have clas­sic paper pre­sen­ta­tions.

A lim­it­ed amount of finan­cial sup­port for accom­mo­da­tion and trav­el will be made avail­able. Please indi­cate in your appli­ca­tion if you would like to be con­sid­ered for funding.

To par­tic­i­pate, please send your abstracts (500 words) and a short CV to GKS@polsoz.fu-berlin.de by June 19^th, 2022. Accept­ed abstracts will be announced by mid-July 2022.

Link to this event

The dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sion is
June 16th, 2022

ANTHRO­Po­log­i­cal Stu­dent Con­fer­ence 2022
When: Sep­tem­ber 1–2, 2022
Where: The con­fer­ence will be held in the his­tor­i­cal town of Telč in
south­west­ern Moravia
Who: All ear­ly career researchers (espe­cial­ly PhD students)

The main theme of the con­fer­ence will be the fun­da­men­tal issues and challenges
that we as anthro­pol­o­gists are fac­ing in the com­ing decades. We invite
con­tri­bu­tions from both bio­log­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy and social cul­tur­al anthropology
dis­cussing, but not lim­it­ed to, the fol­low­ing three pri­ma­ry areas of focus within
the Euro­pean Research region:

1) Health, demo­graph­ic change and well-being: The improve­ment of people’s health
and stan­dard of liv­ing through­out the life course.

2) Inno­v­a­tive and safe inclu­sive soci­eties: How are var­i­ous pop­u­la­tions around
the globe work­ing to devel­op inno­v­a­tive, safe and inclu­sive soci­eties with­in the
con­text of change and grow­ing glob­al interdependence?

3) Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, inter­con­nect­ed­ness and pri­va­cy: Recent advance­ments in
how data are col­lect­ed, stored and shared have intro­duced enor­mous research
poten­tial. How­ev­er, these tech­nolo­gies can intro­duce chal­lenges to personal
pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty. How is the inter­face between advanc­ing method­olo­gies and
per­son­al secu­ri­ty being man­aged? What are sug­ges­tions for the future?

We wel­come dif­fer­ent and cre­ative inter­pre­ta­tions of these top­ics, as well as
con­tri­bu­tions from oth­er areas of inter­est with­in anthropology.

There will be no fee to attend the con­fer­ence, and food and accom­mo­da­tion will be
cov­ered by the orga­niz­ers for pre­sent­ing participants.

For sub­mit­ting your abstract and get­ting more infor­ma­tion contact:
dominikcerny@sci.muni.cz

Link to this event

We are pleased to announce the 6th World Con­gress of the World Asso­ci­a­tion of Cul­tur­al Psy­chi­a­try (WACP2022), which will be held from the 14th of Sep­tem­ber to the 17th of Sep­tem­ber, 2022 in Rot­ter­dam, The Netherlands.

WACP2022 is the most impor­tant event world­wide for cul­tur­al psy­chi­a­try, attract­ing col­leagues from men­tal health and acad­e­mia to dis­cuss any top­ic relat­ed to cul­tur­al psy­chi­a­try orits appli­ca­tions. The cen­tral theme of WACP2022 is The Cul­tur­al Per­spec­tive in Psy­chi­a­try: Re-Con­cep­tu­al­iz­ing Con­text and Cul­ture to Meet the Needs of a Glob­al­iz­ing World.

WACP2022 will take place at the Pos­til­lion Con­ven­tion Cen­ter WTC in Rot­ter­dam. The city of Rot­ter­dam is one of the most cul­tur­al­ly diverse cities of the Nether­lands with Europe’s main­port, that con­nects con­ti­nents. In the field of archi­tec­ture, music, the­ater, film, and muse­ums, Rot­ter­dam has a cos­mopoli­tan lev­el of facilities.

More infor­ma­tion regard­ing WACP2022 will fol­low soon. Please have a look at our con­fer­ence web­site: www.wacp2022.org for recent updates.

In advance of the con­fer­ence in 2022, we are excit­ed to announce two free webi­na­rs which will be held on the 19th of Novem­ber, 2021. Please find more infor­ma­tion here.

Look­ing for­ward see­ing you all in 2022 at Pos­til­lion Con­ven­tion Cen­ter WTC Rotterdam!

On behalf of the local orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee: Mario Braak­man Forugh Kari­mi Hans Rohlof.

SIGN UP FOR SEPTEMBER 30 FREE WEBINAR ON
FAMILY AND CULTURE IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION

There is still time to sign up and par­tic­i­pate in the Sep­tem­ber 30th webi­nar orga­nized by our Fam­i­ly and Cul­ture Spe­cial Inter­est Group. Please reg­is­ter using the fol­low­ing link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zJcyzlOVQcCffO0aWkSmbQ

HELP EXPAND THE PRESENCE OF WACP THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

We are start­ing a cam­paign to expand our glob­al reach through social media. Our goal is to facil­i­tate the inter­ac­tion of our mem­bers and friends by iden­ti­fy­ing com­mon inter­ests and expand­ing access to cul­tur­al psy­chi­a­try activ­i­ties and resources.

Our trainee and stu­dent sec­tion, led by William Affleck with sup­port of Sha­bana Jamani, will lead a social media effort with three goals:
expand stu­dent and young pro­fes­sion­al inter­est and engage­ment with WACP;
pro­vide young pro­fes­sion­als the oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work, and share their own research / work in cul­tur­al psychiatry
increase col­lab­o­ra­tions between WACP and stu­dent young professionals
We encour­age you to par­tic­i­pate by ref­er­enc­ing our social media chan­nels in your pro­fes­sion­al post­ings. This will allow us to fur­ther dis­sem­i­nate your activ­i­ties and expand the WACP network.
Face­book: @WorldCulturalPsy
Twit­ter: @WACP06
Linkedin: please con­nect with Dr. William Affleck, pres­i­dent of the Trainee Sec­tion of the WACP. His pro­file can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-affleck-aa313b1b7/. In addi­tion please list WACP in your own pro­files in Linkedin and fol­low our page at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/world-association-of-cultural-psychiatry/
Please dis­sem­i­nate the avail­abil­i­ty of these social media plat­forms among your col­leagues, stu­dents and trainees. We hope to see an expand­ed engage­ment on cul­tur­al psy­chi­a­try as we pre­pare for our 2022 World Congress.

Link to this event

Link to this event