Veranstaltungskalender

„The Lancet’s Cas­es in Glob­al Social Med­i­cine: a new ini­tia­tive explor­ing how social forces shape health, ill­ness, and care across diverse glob­al contexts”

Each case inte­grates med­ical insight with anthro­pol­o­gy and social sci­ence the­o­ry to pro­vide crit­i­cal, action­able tools for clin­i­cians, pub­lic health prac­ti­tion­ers, and policymakers.

This series will be launched across three lead­ing institutions:

UC Berke­ley (Berke­ley Cen­ter for Social Med­i­cine) – 13 April 2026
April 13 in Berke­ley: The Lancet Glob­al Social Med­i­cine Series Kick-Off with Sir Michael Marmot

Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go (Neubauer Col­legium for Cul­ture and Soci­ety) – 16 April 2026
April 15 in Chica­go: The Lancet Glob­al Social Med­i­cine Series Kick-Off with Sir Michael Marmot

Uni­ver­si­ty of Barcelona (Hub for Glob­al Social Med­i­cine) – 5 May 2026
May 5 in Barcelona: The Lancet Glob­al Social Med­i­cine Series Kick-Off with Fer­nan­do Simón

All events will be acces­si­ble in per­son and via livestream or record­ings, enabling glob­al par­tic­i­pa­tion. The series con­venes an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary group of clin­i­cians, schol­ars, and practitioners.

The Cas­es in Glob­al Social Med­i­cine series presents real clin­i­cal cas­es from around the world, each illus­trat­ing how social deter­mi­nants, such as inequal­i­ty, migra­tion, struc­tur­al vio­lence, and access to care, direct­ly shape clin­i­cal outcomes.

Keynotes

The events will fea­ture keynote address­es by Sir Michael Mar­mot (Berke­ley and Chica­go) and Fer­nan­do Simón (Barcelona), both of whom are glob­al lead­ing fig­ures in the study of social deter­mi­nants of health, high­light­ing how social con­di­tions fun­da­men­tal­ly shape health out­comes and why address­ing them is essen­tial to clin­i­cal care and pol­i­cy. These events are designed for schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers in med­i­cine, pub­lic health, and the social sci­ences, as well as any­one inter­est­ed in advanc­ing health equi­ty through inter­dis­ci­pli­nary collaboration.

Dis­cus­sions will include some of the five already pub­lished cases: 

Case 1

Title: Med­ical com­part­men­tal­i­sa­tion: a patient with chro­mo­some 22q11.2 dele­tion syn­drome in Japan(link is external)
Authors: Kiy­oto Kasai; Yousuke Kumaku­ra; Junko Kitana­ka; Shin-ichi­ro Kuma­gaya; Scott D. Stonington

Case 2

Title: Struc­tur­al inter­com­pe­ten­cy: an asy­lum seek­er with abdom­i­nal pain in Tijua­na, Mexico(link is external)
Authors: Car­los Mar­tinez; Shamsh­er Sam­ra; Todd Schneberk; Han­nah Janeway

Case 3

Title: Lin­guis­tic prag­ma­tism: a woman with pro­gres­sive abdom­i­nal pain in Thailand(link is external)

Authors: Scott Ston­ing­ton; Preeyanoot Surinkaew; Thi­dathit Prachanukool

Case 4

Title: Impro­vi­sa­tion in con­texts of infra­struc­tur­al vio­lence: a physi­cian prac­tis­ing med­i­cine in Sahrawi refugee camps(link is external)

Authors: Salek Ali Mohamed Elabd; Larous­si Mohamed Salem; Theodore L Michaels; Dahaman Bachir Hama­di; Raabub Mohamed-Lamin Meh­di; María Car­rión; Seth M Holmes

Case 5

Title: Medico-legal entan­gle­ment: a woman with abdom­i­nal pain in Peru(link is external)

Authors: Michele Heisler; Mar­vel Celeste Sabi­no Pre­tel; Zoe Boudart; Lutz Oette

We warm­ly encour­age you to join us, either in per­son or online, for this impor­tant glob­al conversation

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Col­lo­qui­um “Reject­ing the future: Affect and men­tal health”
6–8 May, 2026
Insti­tute for Advanced Study Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg
Del­men­horst, Germany

Orga­niz­ers: Annette Leib­ing & Mark Schweda

Wednes­day, 06 May 2026

1:00 Recep­tion and light lunch at the HWK

1:50 Short wel­come by Stef­fen Band­low-Raf­fal­s­ki, Mark Schwe­da, and Annette Leibing

2:00 – 3:00 Ste­fan Ecks (U Edin­burgh): Pre­dict­ing Unpredictability

3:00 – 4:30 Con­ver­sa­tion; Chair: Ulla Kriebernegg (U Graz)

Luiz Fer­nan­do Dias Duarte (UF Rio de Janeiro): Freez­ing time: Trans­gen­er­a­tionalopac­i­ty and men­tal disturbance

Mar­cos Freire de Andrade Neves (Freie U Berlin): The emp­ty cell next door: Sus­pend­ed futures and affec­tive life on death row

Mark Schwe­da (U Old­en­burg): ‘Tedi­um vitae‘ in the con­text of assist­ed dying

4:30 – 4:50 Cof­fee break („Kaf­fee und Kuchen“)

4:50 – 5:50 Leila Dawney (U Exeter): Chron­ic affects: on com­ing to terms with future­less­ness in a decom­mis­sion­ing nuclear town

Thurs­day, 07 May 2026

9:00 – 10:00 Anne Lovell (INSERM Paris): TBD

10:00 – 10:15 Cof­fee break

10:15 – 12:00 Con­ver­sa­tion; Chair: Isaac Yuen (Berlin)

Matthew Wolf-Mey­er (Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute): On anx­i­ety, com­pla­cen­cy, and bore­dom in the Anthropocene

Nolen Gertz (Twente U): War and Exile: On PTSD and mil­i­tary suicide

Clau­dia Boz­zaro (U Mün­ster): “Til death do us part”: the emerg­ing phe­nom­e­non of assist­ed dou­ble suicide.

12:15 –1:45 Lunch + walk

1:45 – 2:45 Ayo Wahlberg (U Copen­hagen): Fer­til­i­ty exhaus­tion in pro-natal­ist China

Fri­day, 08 May 2026

9:00 – 10:00 Stephen Katz (Trent U): The cri­sis of lone­li­ness and the future of aging

10:00 – 10:20 Cof­fee break

10:20 – 11:20 John Marlovits (San José State U): Can the asy­lum speak? Punk chal­lenges to psy­chi­atric con­tain­ment cul­ture in 1970s San Francisco

11:20 – 12:20 Con­ver­sa­tion; Chair: Mark Schweda

Matthew Wor­ley (U Read­ing): ‘Iden­ti­ty, it’s a cri­sis, can’t you see’: British punk and men­tal ill­ness, c.1970s-80s

Annette Leib­ing (U Mon­tre­al): Mud­dled affect: On uncom­mon futures 

12:20 – Final words (MS, AL)

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Sym­po­sium “Assist­ed Repro­duc­tive Tech­nol­o­gy and Social Sci­ences: Think­ing about what’s miss­ing. Invent­ing possibilities”
May 29, 2026
Cam­pus Con­dorcet (Aubervil­liers, France)

We wel­come con­tri­bu­tions from all fields of the social sci­ences address­ing the gaps, lim­its, and unmet needs in ART, as well as method­olog­i­cal and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach­es to explore them.

Please note that pre­sen­ta­tions will take place on-site only.

Dead­line for pro­pos­als: Decem­ber 1, 2025
Email: parcours2026@gmail.com
Abstract length: approx. 300 words (noti­fi­ca­tion by end of December)

The full call for papers can be found below

CfP Symposium_PARCOURS

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ACM Inter­ac­tive Health 2026
Ear­ly July, Por­to, Portugal
https://ih.acm.org/

About:

The ACM Inter­ac­tive Health Con­fer­ence (IH) is a new con­fer­ence that aims to be the lead­ing venue for pre­sent­ing work at the inter­sec­tion of Human-Com­put­er Inter­ac­tion (HCI) and Health. The con­fer­ence will wel­come all kinds of work in this space, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to: the study of health prac­tices; the devel­op­ment of meth­ods and the­o­ries for engag­ing users and cre­at­ing human-cen­tered health tech­nolo­gies; or the design, eval­u­a­tion, and imple­men­ta­tion of health tech­nolo­gies to sup­port health and well-being.
Participate:

IH 2026 offers var­i­ous ways to par­tic­i­pate. Authors can sub­mit an extend­ed abstract in the fol­low­ing categories:

Short Forms – Pre­sen­ta­tions for new, emerg­ing, and engag­ing con­tri­bu­tions at the con­fer­ence as a poster;
Demos and Exhi­bi­tions – Sub­mis­sions for on-site demon­stra­tions of inter­ac­tive technologies;
Work­shops – Pro­pos­als for a one-day event for focused dis­cus­sion and for­mu­la­tion of shared goals and agen­das with­in the IH com­mu­ni­ty about key topics;

Doc­tor­al Col­lo­qui­um – Appli­ca­tions for Ph.D. stu­dents to receive men­tor­ships and share research among a small group of peers;
Ear­ly Career Work­shop – Appli­ca­tions for ear­ly career researchers (up to 5 years post-Ph.D.) to attend a one-day event to explore their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties and goals, learn from one anoth­er, and dis­cuss top­ics most impor­tant to them.

We will also open a call for „Relat­ed Con­tri­bu­tions”, papers pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished in oth­er con­fer­ences or jour­nals with an impor­tant mes­sage for the com­mu­ni­ty, which will be pre­sent­ed at IH as a poster or short presentation.
More­over, the con­fer­ence will not have a full paper sub­mis­sion track. Paper ses­sions at the con­fer­ence will be most­ly com­posed of papers accept­ed at the ACM HEALTH jour­nal Spe­cial Issue on Human Cen­tered Com­put­ing in Health­care.

First sub­mis­sion deadlines:

Short forms: Feb­ru­ary 12th 2026
Demos and Exhi­bi­tions: Feb­ru­ary 26th 2026
Work­shops: Jan­u­ary 15th 2026
Doc­tor­al Col­lo­qui­um: Feb­ru­ary 5th 2026
Ear­ly Career Work­shop: April 1st 2026

Join us!
The organ­is­ing team is extreme­ly excit­ed to bring IH to life. The HCI com­mu­ni­ty has been dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing a con­fer­ence bridg­ing HCI and Health for many years at the Spe­cial Inter­est Group on Com­put­er-Human Inter­ac­tion (SIGCHI) of the ACM – the largest asso­ci­a­tion of com­put­ing researchers and professionals.
We hope you will sub­mit your work and join us at the inau­gur­al ACM Inter­ac­tive Health Con­fer­ence in Por­to, Por­tu­gal. You will be joined by researchers, design­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers, health­care pro­fes­sion­als, and patients to reflect and dis­cuss emerg­ing chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties across the social-tech­ni­cal ecosys­tems of health and well-being.
For fur­ther details about the sub­mis­sions, review, pub­li­ca­tion process, or gen­er­al infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence, please go to: https://ih.acm.org.

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Inter­na­tion­al sym­po­sium Repro­duc­tive Health in Frag­ile Democ­ra­cies: Bod­ies, Tech­nolo­gies and Futures
June 8–9, 2026
Pauls Stradiņš Med­i­cine His­to­ry Muse­um in Riga, Latvia

The sym­po­sium brings togeth­er schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers from the social sci­ences, human­i­ties, and health­care fields to explore repro­duc­tion as a key site for think­ing about democ­ra­cy, inequal­i­ty, and the pol­i­tics of care, par­tic­u­lar­ly in con­texts of frag­ile or shift­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.

Sub­mis­sion dead­line: March 1, 2026 (11:55 PM CET)
Sub­mis­sion link: https://forms.gle/3KGXDLuTnSmXDfnT8

For­mat: title, affil­i­a­tion, and 200-word abstract
Par­tic­i­pa­tion: free of charge

Keynote speak­ers include Agniesz­ka Koś­ci­ańs­ka (Uni­ver­si­ty of War­saw) and Ani­ka König (Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin).

MVM — SYMPOSIUM

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Anna Molas: „Tam­ing Egg Donors: The Egg Dona­tion Repro­duc­tive Mar­ket in Spain” (Book Launch)

17th of June 2026
18.30h CEST online and in per­son in Barcelona

The pre­sen­ta­tion will be fol­lowed by a con­ver­sa­tion with Lau­ra Per­ler (Uni­ver­si­ty of Bern) and Chan­dra Kala Clemente-Martínez (Chair of the Cata­lan Asso­ci­a­tion of Adoptees). Chris New­field, ISRF Direc­tor of Research, will mod­er­ate the Q&A.

Link to reg­is­ter: Book Launch “Tam­ing Egg Donors”

Tam­ing Egg Donors – Flyer

About the book:
Spain has become one of the most promi­nent fer­til­i­ty mar­kets in the world, large­ly fuelled by the avail­abil­i­ty of human eggs. Behind the promise of cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and par­ent­hood lies a care­ful­ly tai­lored sys­tem to recruit, man­age, and dis­ci­pline egg donors. In this book, Anna Molas explores how young women are incor­po­rat­ed as egg donors into the glob­al repro­duc­tive indus­try. Through in-depth ethno­graph­ic field­work with both donors and clin­i­cians, the book reveals the frag­ile process­es of selec­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, and con­trol that ensure the sup­ply of human eggs. Intro­duc­ing the con­cept of tam­ing, Molas illu­mi­nates the gen­dered, racial­ized, and classed dimen­sions of repro­duc­tive labor. Engag­ing with the polit­i­cal econ­o­my of repro­duc­tion and the future of repro­duc­tive med­i­cine, this book is an essen­tial resource for schol­ars in med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies, and fem­i­nist studies.

More Info

Reviews:
“This metic­u­lous­ly researched and argued account of how egg donors in Spain are induct­ed into the glob­al repro-mar­ket makes a cru­cial inter­ven­tion into the now exten­sive soci­o­log­i­cal work on repro­duc­tive labour, entre­pre­neurism and strat­i­fi­ca­tion. A bril­liant con­tri­bu­tion to polit­i­cal econ­o­my as well as repro­duc­tive stud­ies, it is also a mas­ter­ful­ly con­duct­ed study with far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions for prac­ti­tion­ers as well as the social sciences.”
Sarah Franklin, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge

“Enter a world of unpre­dictable bod­ies, painful injec­tions and pres­sured extrac­tions. Molas ren­ders the hid­den work and agency of young women egg donors vis­i­ble in this impor­tant ethnog­ra­phy of the posi­tion­al rela­tions between donors and clin­ics in the world’s largest egg dona­tion indus­try in Spain. In this superb book, she the­o­ris­es how par­tic­i­pat­ing in repro­duc­tive pro­vi­sion depends upon, pro­duces and cap­i­tal­izes on vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and how young women become oppor­tunis­tic entre­pre­neurs of their repro­duc­tive potentials.”
Andrea Whit­tak­er, FASSA, Pro­fes­sor at the School of Social Sci­ences, Monash University

“Anna Molas‘ bril­liant study both con­tributes to our under­stand­ing of a key site in the glob­al sys­tem of egg pro­vi­sion – Spain – and brings a remark­able fresh per­spec­tive to the repro­duc­tive work involved. By focus­ing on the for­ma­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive and con­test­ed rela­tion­ships between clin­i­cians and egg providers, the book exam­ines the pow­er rela­tion­ships that allow clin­ics to com­bine care with con­trol, and reli­ably dis­en­tan­gle women from their eggs. Draw­ing on the con­cep­tu­al pos­si­bil­i­ties of ‘tam­ing’, Molas gives us new ways to analyse the inti­mate labour at the heart of the fer­til­i­ty industry.”
Cather­ine Wald­by, FASSA, Pro­fes­sor at the Research School of Social Sci­ences, Aus­tralian Nation­al University

“This unique study presents a deeply researched ethnog­ra­phy of Spain’s egg dona­tion econ­o­my. Molas maps out the mar­ket log­ics and dis­ci­pli­nary tech­niques, always gen­dered, racialised, and classed, through which bod­ies are tamed for inclu­sion in bioe­co­nom­ic cir­cuits of val­ori­sa­tion, sur­veil­lance, and extrac­tion. Fore­ground­ing the voic­es of par­tic­i­pants, both donors and clin­i­cians, Molas skil­ful­ly demys­ti­fies the pow­er dynam­ics obscured by reduc­tive dis­cours­es of ‘dona­tion’ or ‘char­i­ty’. This is required read­ing for schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers alike.”
Dr Lars Cor­nelis­sen, Aca­d­e­m­ic Edi­tor, Inde­pen­dent Social Research Foun­da­tion, Lon­don, UK

“Tam­ing Egg Donors offers a com­pre­hen­sive account of how women in Spain come to the deci­sion to donate their eggs. By using the con­cept of tam­ing to ana­lyze the expe­ri­ences of egg donors, Molas shows how the labor involved in mak­ing eggs avail­able for the glob­al bio-mar­ket rein­forces exist­ing inequal­i­ties. This is a rich and thought­ful study that makes an impor­tant inter­ven­tion in the schol­ar­ship on repro­duc­tive labor.”
Daisy Deo­mam­po, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Ford­ham University

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Pan­el “Embody­ing the Immea­sur­able: Mate­r­i­al Prospec­tions on Pain, Ill­ness, and Suf­fer­ing in Crisis”
Part of the track “Method­olo­gies Anchored in Design, Pro­to­types, and Mate­r­i­al Cre­ation” at the XVI ESOCITE Con­fer­ence (Aso­ciación Lati­noamer­i­cana de Estu­dios Sociales de Cien­cia y Tecnología)
June 24 to 26, 2026
Bogotá, Colombia 

In times of glob­al crises—pandemics, con­flicts, envi­ron­men­tal disasters—pain, ill­ness, and suf­fer­ing tra­verse bod­ies, sens­es, and mate­ri­al­i­ties. This pan­el invites explo­ration of how the human is con­sti­tut­ed under these extreme con­di­tions and how the (in)material, togeth­er with Futures Design, can offer tools to envi­sion and project pos­si­ble envi­ron­ments and sce­nar­ios that shape the expe­ri­ence of suf­fer­ing (Fry, 2009).
We wel­come sub­mis­sions address­ing these issues from diverse the­o­ries of sub­jec­tiv­i­ty and epis­te­mo­log­i­cal approach­es: embod­ied cog­ni­tion (Varela, Thomp­son & Rosch, 1991); phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal and med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy approach­es (Rouse, 2009; Klein­man, 1997, 2020; Biehl, 2005); the exis­ten­tial dimen­sion and bod­i­ly vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (Cos­melli, 2025); as well as the inter­ac­tion between tech­nol­o­gy, mate­ri­al­i­ty, and invis­i­ble worlds, show­ing how envi­ron­ments and objects shape expe­ri­ences that tran­scend the tan­gi­ble (Espíri­to San­to, 2020,2021,2025) and crit­i­cal analy­ses of pow­er rela­tions and ontolo­gies of the human (Povinel­li, 2021).
The STS com­mu­ni­ty is invit­ed to con­tribute papers that cre­ative­ly and rig­or­ous­ly con­nect expe­ri­ences, the­o­ries, and projections—such as applied projects, media-based work, the­o­ret­i­cal papers, and lit­er­a­ture reviews—that con­tribute to crit­i­cal think­ing in Futures Design, inte­grat­ing expe­ri­ences, the­o­ries, and mate­ri­al­i­ties to gen­er­ate new hori­zons in rela­tion to pain, ill­ness, and suffering.

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CfP: Democ­ra­cy as Health; Work­shop and Edit­ed Vol­ume; June 29–30, 2026, Geneva

Call for papers for a work­shop tak­ing place next sum­mer, which intends to lead to an edit­ed vol­ume, titled ‘Democ­ra­cy as Health.’ This event will take place in Gene­va on June 29–30, 2026, orga­nized by myself and Pro­fes­sor Aditya Bharad­waj from the Gene­va Grad­u­ate Insti­tute. We have the hon­or to be joined by keynote speak­ers includ­ing Pro­fes­sors Jes­si­ca Mul­li­gan, San­dra Bärn­reuther, Jan­i­na Kehr, and Ruth Prince. 

The full call for papers is avail­able at the link below, and attached. We encour­age ethno­graph­i­cal­ly ground­ed per­spec­tives across all con­texts. Abstract sub­mis­sions of up to 500 words should be sent to Robert.Smith@graduateinstitute.ch no lat­er than Jan­u­ary 5th, 2026. The work­shop is in per­son. Par­tial fund­ing stipends are avail­able for par­tic­i­pants on a need-based basis. Par­tic­i­pants should indi­cate their inter­est in finan­cial sup­port at the time of their appli­ca­tion. Should you have any ques­tions, please also feel free to reach out to me directly.

CfP:

Glob­al­ly, pub­licly fund­ed health­care has become increas­ing­ly politi­cized with­in demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es over the past decades. Rang­ing from the politi­ciza­tion of the Unit­ed States’ Afford­able Care Act dubbed ‘Oba­maCare,’ the resis­tance to the increas­ing pri­va­ti­za­tion of the Unit­ed Kingdom’s Nation­al Health Ser­vice, pop­ulist polit­i­cal brand­ings of health­care infra­struc­tures in South Asia, or cit­i­zen activism across con­texts, health has increas­ing­ly entered demo­c­ra­t­ic agen­das. Con­trast­ing from 20th cen­tu­ry polit­i­cal move­ments around health­care that gar­nered momen­tum through spe­cif­ic dis­ease cat­e­gories, such as HIV-AIDS (Biehl 2004) or afflic­tion of specif­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al­ized pop­u­la­tions (Petry­na 2013), con­tem­po­rary politi­ciza­tions are increas­ing­ly mobi­liz­ing broad visions of ‘health’ for elec­toral gains (Kehr, Muinde, and Prince 2023; Coop­er, 2019). In many set­tings, such politi­ciza­tions take the form of one-off schemes that are typ­i­cal­ly polit­i­cal­ly tem­po­rary and par­tial in nature, rely­ing on decades of state neglect in health­care to be per­ceived as suc­cess­ful by the elec­torate. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, this ris­ing elec­toral-politi­ciza­tion of health ser­vices and pro­grams also takes place with­in con­texts of ris­ing health austerity. 

There­fore, in this work­shop, we seek to use this emer­gence of health as an explic­it object of elec­toral-polit­i­cal agen­das to think through the con­tem­po­rary rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health, and more broad­ly the pol­i­tics of bio-pol­i­tics. The con­cept of ‘pol­i­tics,’ most broad­ly, has been a long­stand­ing con­cern for med­ical anthro­pol­o­gists’ engage­ment with patients’ expe­ri­ences, and under­stand­ings of pow­er. Sem­i­nal­ly, Foucault’s notion of ‘biopol­i­tics’ has pro­vid­ed a con­cep­tu­al foun­da­tion for med­ical anthro­pol­o­gists to make sense of how process­es of sub­jec­tiviza­tion take place with­in health’s domains, and the gov­ern­men­tal appa­ra­tus­es that ani­mate those process­es. Notably, biopo­lit­i­cal­ly inspired frame­works of pol­i­tics have shaped how anthro­pol­o­gists engage with how patients mobi­lize patho­log­i­cal-bio­log­i­cal iden­ti­ties to place cit­i­zen­ship claims upon the state (Rose and Novas 2005; Biehl 2004; Petry­na 2013; Tick­tin 2011 Nguyen 2010), how bio­med­ical knowl­edge can be used to claim author­i­ty in state spaces (Adams 1998), or how med­i­cine is mobi­lized as a sym­bol of nation­al moder­ni­ty (Broth­er­ton 2012; Al-Dewachi 2017). Yet, neigh­bor­ing dis­ci­plines have point­ed out that the use of pol­i­tics in this lit­er­a­ture may risk con­fin­ing itself to the realm of the bio­log­i­cal, and can “under­mine the polit­i­cal” as an ana­lyt­i­cal cat­e­go­ry by dis­count­ing how oth­er forms of pol­i­tics inter­sect with biol­o­gized pol­i­tics of health (Bird and Lynch 2019). Over­all, the con­cept of ‘pol­i­tics,’ often quick­ly glossed through the ‘pol­i­tics of health,’ main­tains a degree of ambiva­lence in the can­non of med­ical anthropology.

In response, this work­shop seeks to bring togeth­er lead­ing schol­ars to ethno­graph­i­cal­ly think through this in a way that is gen­er­a­tive of nov­el con­cep­tu­al for­mu­la­tions to under­stand the con­tem­po­rary rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health. Democ­ra­cy, in this sense, while ground­ed in process­es of elec­toral-pol­i­tics, is not empir­i­cal­ly con­fined to the prac­tice of vot­ing nor the rit­u­al of elec­tions, but seeks to account for the dif­fer­ent realms of the polit­i­cal that work along­side, with­in, and through, and are also con­struct­ed by, the pol­i­tics of health. In approach­ing these ques­tions, we aim to more explic­it­ly bring togeth­er lit­er­a­ture in med­ical and polit­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy. Doing so par­tic­u­lar­ly takes stalk of how con­cepts of polit­i­cal, affec­tive feel­ings of polit­i­cal exis­tence, and the mate­r­i­al-spec­tral real­i­ties of the state inform sub­jec­tiv­i­ties towards health and care (Aretx­a­ga 2003; Navaro-Yashin 2002; Can­dea 2011; Pos­tero and Eli­noff 2019; Steet 2012; Volle­bergh, Kon­ing, and March­esi, 2021). This inter­sec­tion presents oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with dif­fer­ent read­ings of biopol­i­tics. Specif­i­cal­ly, ear­ly Fou­cauldian ideas of locat­able, tan­gi­ble ‘veins of pow­er’ — as pos­si­ble to see with­in bio­med­ical clin­ics — as well as lat­er Fou­cauldian ideas that pow­er is every­where — as pos­si­ble to see with­in polit­i­cal affects — which need align­ment in order to under­stand con­tem­po­rary for­ma­tions of democ­ra­cy as health. 

This edit­ed vol­ume revolves around the idea that, amidst ris­ing fas­cist, author­i­tar­i­an ten­den­cies that rely upon health as an elec­toral-polit­i­cal tool, it is increas­ing­ly urgent to reimag­ine the rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health. This vol­ume will seek to revolve around the fol­low­ing cen­tral questions: 

· How does democ­ra­cy reimag­ine the idea of health as an optic, a good, a right, a ser­vice, and more, in rela­tion to the state and the pri­vate sector?
· What do demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es do to the fig­ure of the clin­ic and how does it mod­u­late its gaze?
· What does the rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health do to imag­i­na­tions and rela­tion­al­i­ties between states and subjects?
· How does health’s elec­toral-polit­i­cal uptake trans­mit into the realm of patient expe­ri­ence, sub­jec­tiv­i­ty and embodiment? 

Full CfP as PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x2s1TAuj-E5nbcM9c9GBcbhC3xF0kMWp/view?usp=drive_link

Perma­link

Call for Papers
Work­shop: De-/val­u­a­tions in paid care work
Uni­ver­si­ty of Lucerne, Depart­ment of Social and Cul­tur­al Anthropology
July 2–3, 2026
Orga­nized by Mad­huri­la­ta Basu, Jürg Büh­ler, San­dra Bärnreuther

Research on care work has often paid atten­tion to ques­tions of val­ue and val­u­a­tion: be it the
descrip­tion of care work as a labor of love, empa­thy, and con­cern (Rose 1983), as a source of
sur­plus val­ue (Fed­eri­ci 2012), as a com­mod­i­ty embed­ded in the glob­al econ­o­my (Hochschild
2000, Par­reñas 2000), or as a foun­da­tion for devel­op­ing alter­na­tive eth­i­cal and polit­i­cal theories
(Gilli­gan 1982; Nod­dings 1984; Held 2006, Tron­to 1993). While some stud­ies examine
dif­fer­ent under­stand­ings and prac­tices of good care along­side the ten­sions and contradictions
they pro­duce (Klein­man 2009, Smith-Mor­ris 2018, Steven­son 2014), much of the research on
paid care work empha­sizes issues of deskilling, deval­u­a­tion, and the extrac­tion of val­ue (e.g.,
John and Wich­terich 2023). The gen­der­ing of care work as female, and its links to domestic
and bod­i­ly labor, are shown to be cru­cial in under­stand­ing the exploita­tion and marginalization
of care work­ers, although there are notable dif­fer­ences across var­i­ous groups (Cohen and
Wolkowitz 2018, Ray 2019).

The val­u­a­tion and deval­u­a­tion of care occur through com­plex process­es, includ­ing ongoing
nego­ti­a­tions with larg­er eco­nom­ic and soci­etal struc­tures. Giv­en the high­ly ambigu­ous nature
of these val­u­a­tions, it is easy to over­look that care work­ers them­selves assign mean­ing, moral
sig­nif­i­cance, and val­ue to their work, often in ways that may dif­fer from pop­u­lar and scholarly
descrip­tions and assess­ments. Under­stand­ing these self-per­cep­tions is essen­tial, even though
care work­ers’ voic­es often remain unheard. Trac­ing intri­cate process­es of val­u­a­tion and
deval­u­a­tion by care work­ers and oth­er actors involved in paid care work is there­fore cru­cial for
under­stand­ing how care work is expe­ri­enced and shaped over time.

This work­shop aims to exam­ine val­u­a­tion prac­tices relat­ed to paid care work, empha­siz­ing the
per­spec­tives of var­i­ous actors, includ­ing care­givers, mem­bers of care insti­tu­tions (such as
man­age­ment, edu­ca­tors, and doc­tors), and care recip­i­ents. We fol­low Dus­sauge et al. (2015) in
view­ing value(s) not as “pre­fixed entit[ies] which explain […] action” but treat “the genesis,
artic­u­la­tion, dis­pute, and set­tling of what comes to count as val­ues as mat­ters for empirical
inves­ti­ga­tion and expla­na­tion” (ibid., 6). Through an in-depth analy­sis of the mak­ing of values
in care prac­tice, we seek to under­stand process­es of de-/val­u­a­tion of care work, skills, degrees,
health, and work­ers them­selves. Impor­tant­ly, pow­er is not absent in this approach; to the
con­trary: “By study­ing the mak­ing of val­ues tra­di­tion­al­ly seen as belong­ing to different
domains we can see pow­er strug­gles over which val­ues are to be dom­i­nant, the mak­ing of
bound­aries between val­ues (that may become made as sep­a­rate), and when dif­fer­ent val­ues are
made com­men­su­rable” (ibid.). The work­shop high­lights the con­flict­ing con­cerns and stakes
involved in pro­vid­ing care, as well as how val­u­a­tions are active­ly pro­duced, trans­formed, and
maintained.

We invite ethno­graph­i­cal­ly ori­ent­ed schol­ars study­ing paid care work across var­i­ous fields and
regions to join this work­shop. Pos­si­ble top­ics for papers might include: dis­cours­es of de-
/valuation in edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions and work­places; ratio­nal­iza­tions of dif­fer­ent labor
regimes; rela­tion­ships among dif­fer­ent groups of care work­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al groups;
changes in work­force com­po­si­tion; labor strug­gles and union­iza­tion efforts; the introduction
of new tech­nolo­gies; or care work and the plat­form economy.

Please send your abstract (up to 500 words) and author biog­ra­phy (up to 100 words) by
Jan­u­ary 16, 2026, to madhurilata.basu@unilu.ch. We may have lim­it­ed funds to sup­port travel
and accom­mo­da­tion costs for a few par­tic­i­pants. Please indi­cate in your appli­ca­tion if you
require finan­cial assistance.

Perma­link

Call for Papers
Work­shop: De-/val­u­a­tions in paid care work
Uni­ver­si­ty of Lucerne, Depart­ment of Social and Cul­tur­al Anthropology

July 2–3, 2026

Orga­nized by Mad­huri­la­ta Basu, Jürg Büh­ler, San­dra Bärnreuther

Research on care work has often paid atten­tion to ques­tions of val­ue and val­u­a­tion: be it the descrip­tion of care work as a labor of love, empa­thy, and con­cern (Rose 1983), as a source of sur­plus val­ue (Fed­eri­ci 2012), as a com­mod­i­ty embed­ded in the glob­al econ­o­my (Hochschild 2000, Par­reñas 2000), or as a foun­da­tion for devel­op­ing alter­na­tive eth­i­cal and polit­i­cal the­o­ries (Gilli­gan 1982; Nod­dings 1984; Held 2006, Tron­to 1993). While some stud­ies exam­ine dif­fer­ent under­stand­ings and prac­tices of good care along­side the ten­sions and con­tra­dic­tions they pro­duce (Klein­man 2009, Smith-Mor­ris 2018, Steven­son 2014), much of the research on paid care work empha­sizes issues of deskilling, deval­u­a­tion, and the extrac­tion of val­ue (e.g., John and Wich­terich 2023). The gen­der­ing of care work as female, and its links to domes­tic and bod­i­ly labor, are shown to be cru­cial in under­stand­ing the exploita­tion and mar­gin­al­iza­tion of care work­ers, although there are notable dif­fer­ences across var­i­ous groups (Cohen and Wolkowitz 2018, Ray 2019).

The val­u­a­tion and deval­u­a­tion of care occur through com­plex process­es, includ­ing ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions with larg­er eco­nom­ic and soci­etal struc­tures. Giv­en the high­ly ambigu­ous nature of these val­u­a­tions, it is easy to over­look that care work­ers them­selves assign mean­ing, moral sig­nif­i­cance, and val­ue to their work, often in ways that may dif­fer from pop­u­lar and schol­ar­ly descrip­tions and assess­ments. Under­stand­ing these self-per­cep­tions is essen­tial, even though care work­ers’ voic­es often remain unheard. Trac­ing intri­cate process­es of val­u­a­tion and deval­u­a­tion by care work­ers and oth­er actors involved in paid care work is there­fore cru­cial for under­stand­ing how care work is expe­ri­enced and shaped over time.

This work­shop aims to exam­ine val­u­a­tion prac­tices relat­ed to paid care work, empha­siz­ing the per­spec­tives of var­i­ous actors, includ­ing care­givers, mem­bers of care insti­tu­tions (such as man­age­ment, edu­ca­tors, and doc­tors), and care recip­i­ents. We fol­low Dus­sauge et al. (2015) in view­ing value(s) not as “pre­fixed entit[ies] which explain […] action” but treat “the gen­e­sis, artic­u­la­tion, dis­pute, and set­tling of what comes to count as val­ues as mat­ters for empir­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion and expla­na­tion” (ibid., 6). Through an in-depth analy­sis of the mak­ing of val­ues in care prac­tice, we seek to under­stand process­es of de-/val­u­a­tion of care work, skills, degrees, health, and work­ers them­selves. Impor­tant­ly, pow­er is not absent in this approach; to the con­trary: “By study­ing the mak­ing of val­ues tra­di­tion­al­ly seen as belong­ing to dif­fer­ent domains we can see pow­er strug­gles over which val­ues are to be dom­i­nant, the mak­ing of bound­aries between val­ues (that may become made as sep­a­rate), and when dif­fer­ent val­ues are made com­men­su­rable” (ibid.). The work­shop high­lights the con­flict­ing con­cerns and stakes involved in pro­vid­ing care, as well as how val­u­a­tions are active­ly pro­duced, trans­formed, and maintained.

We invite ethno­graph­i­cal­ly ori­ent­ed schol­ars study­ing paid care work across var­i­ous fields and regions to join this work­shop. Pos­si­ble top­ics for papers might include: dis­cours­es of de-/val­u­a­tion in edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions and work­places; ratio­nal­iza­tions of dif­fer­ent labor regimes; rela­tion­ships among dif­fer­ent groups of care work­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al groups; changes in work­force com­po­si­tion; labor strug­gles and union­iza­tion efforts; the intro­duc­tion of new tech­nolo­gies; or care work and the plat­form economy.

Please send your abstract (up to 500 words) and author biog­ra­phy (up to 100 words) by Jan­u­ary 16, 2026, to madhurilata.basu@unilu.ch. We may have lim­it­ed funds to sup­port trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion costs for a few par­tic­i­pants. Please indi­cate in your appli­ca­tion if you require finan­cial assistance.

Perma­link

Health­care Improve­ment Sum­mer School
8th-10th July, 2026
Leices­ter Tigers Rug­by Club­house in Leices­ter, UK

The SAPPHIRE (Social Sci­ence APPlied Health­care & Improve­ment Research) research group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter are pleased to announce our pop­u­lar Ethnog­ra­phy for Health­care Improve­ment Sum­mer School will be offered again in 2026, and will run 8th-10th July, 2026, at Leices­ter Tigers Rug­by Club­house in Leices­ter, UK. This short course is designed for Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tors, Researchers and Doc­tor­al Stu­dents to crit­i­cal­ly engage with the the­o­ry and prac­tice of ethnog­ra­phy in health­care set­tings. Over 3 days, you will learn more about the use of ethnog­ra­phy for health­care improve­ment, from design­ing research to man­ag­ing improve­ment and eval­u­a­tion ten­sions, nav­i­gat­ing dif­fer­ent con­texts, reach­ing audi­ences and influ­enc­ing pol­i­cy and prac­tice. Addi­tion­al­ly, you will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op a net­work of fel­low prac­ti­tion­ers and researchers with shared method­olog­i­cal inter­ests, work with expe­ri­enced ethno­g­ra­phers as men­tors, and join an inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice around ethnog­ra­phy for health­care improve­ment. The cost of the 3 day course, includ­ing all edu­ca­tion mate­ri­als and activ­i­ties, plus lunch and refresh­ments all days, is £1000 (inclu­sive of VAT). Trans­port to and from the venue and accom­mo­da­tion is not includ­ed, and should be arranged indi­vid­u­al­ly by delegates.

Reg­is­tra­tions are strict­ly lim­it­ed, and are now open at https://shop.le.ac.uk/product-catalogue/events-at-leicester/health-sciences/ethnography-for-healthcare-improvement-summer-school-2026; book­ings will close 31st May 2026. A wait­ing list will be main­tained in the event of the course being over-sub­scribed. Please for­ward any ques­tions to Jen­nifer Creese, course lead: jennifer.creese@leicester.ac.uk.

Best wish­es, Dr Jen­nifer Creese (BA, MIM, PhD, FHEA) (She/Her/Hers)
Lec­tur­er, School of Med­ical Sci­ences – Pub­lic Health and Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Divi­sion (SAPPHIRE Group)
Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter, George Davies Cen­tre, Uni­ver­si­ty Road, Leices­ter LE1 7RH UK

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CfP for “Car­ing for the Pos­si­ble: In the Mean­time of Healthcare’s Data-Dri­ven Futures”
Pan­el at the Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (EASST) con­fer­ence in Krakow
Sep­tem­ber 2026. 

The dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sions is 28 Feb­ru­ary 2026. Please see below for more infor­ma­tion and sub­mit your abstract here: https://easst.net/conference/easst2026/call-for-abstracts/

P178: Car­ing for the Pos­si­ble: In the Mean­time of Healthcare’s Data-Dri­ven Futures 

Short Abstract

What hap­pens to the promis­so­ry utopias of data-dri­ven health­care “in the mean­time”? This pan­el rein­vig­o­rates STS approach­es to health­care data and tem­po­ral­i­ty through Masque­li­er & Durham’s anthro­pol­o­gy of the pos­si­ble, trac­ing how wait­ing, delay, refram­ing and repair shape care. 

Descrip­tion

In con­tem­po­rary health­care, data are rou­tine­ly invoked as instru­ments for pre­dic­tion, con­trol and rev­o­lu­tion­ary trans­for­ma­tion, promis­ing more per­son­alised, effi­cient, and evi­dence-based care. Yet between the aspi­ra­tional and the actu­al lies what Masque­li­er and Durham (2023) call the mean­time: the inde­ter­mi­nate, affec­tive, and open-end­ed space in which pos­si­ble futures are con­tin­u­al­ly nego­ti­at­ed. Draw­ing on their invi­ta­tion to an anthro­pol­o­gy of the pos­si­ble, this pan­el rein­vig­o­rates the ways STS engages empir­i­cal­ly with data prac­tices that are nei­ther ful­ly realised nor entire­ly speculative. 

Draw­ing on empir­i­cal research in social stud­ies of med­i­cine, health­care and clin­i­cal data infra­struc­tures, we explore the forms of wait­ing, adjust­ment, and impro­vi­sa­tion char­ac­ter­is­ing every­day work with data. These ‘mean­time prac­tices’ include the craft­ing of incom­plete datasets, the main­te­nance of frag­ile and some­times fic­tion­al inter­op­er­abil­i­ty, and the affec­tive labours of care that make such sys­tems func­tion. Rather than treat­ing data as sta­ble inter­me­di­aries or pre­cur­sors to pre­dic­tive futures, we approach them as sites where the pos­si­ble is con­tin­u­al­ly refig­ured — through moments of sus­pen­sion, hes­i­ta­tion, and repair. 

Bring­ing Masque­li­er and Durham’s anthro­pol­o­gy of the pos­si­ble into dia­logue with fem­i­nist STS and social stud­ies of data, we explore the con­cep­tu­al and method­olog­i­cal open­ings for study­ing health­care data as a ter­rain of ongo­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty. Such an approach invites us to notice not only what data are promised to deliv­er, but also what they hold open — in the mean­time — about how futures of health, care, and evi­dence might be made oth­er­wise. We invite papers that con­sid­er data prac­tices and care in ‘the mean­time’, engag­ing ques­tions such as: 

– What nov­el modes of atten­tion become pos­si­ble when ‘the mean­time’ of data prac­tices is our focus?
– What sorts of ‘mean­times’, of dif­fer­ent tem­po­ral­i­ties, exist among data practices?
– How do ‘data mean­times’ shape our under­stand­ings of the past and pos­si­bil­i­ties for the future of care? 

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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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CfP_Remaking Responsibility_7‑9 Octo­ber 2026

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