Veranstaltungskalender

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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RHEAL – Reli­gion and Heal­ing: Col­lab­o­ra­tive and Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Methodologies
Sapien­za Uni­ver­si­ty of Rome from 21 to 24 Sep­tem­ber 2026

The sem­i­nars Path­ways to Heal­ing Col­lab­o­ra­tions between Reli­gion and Bio­med­i­cine: Case Stud­ies in Tan­za­nia, Indone­sia and Italy, will explore ethno­graph­ic approach­es to heal­ing across these three con­texts, with par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to forms of col­lab­o­ra­tion between reli­gious and bio­med­ical approaches.

The ses­sions on 21–22 Sep­tem­ber are open to par­tic­i­pants both in per­son and online, upon registration:

https://forms.gle/hdXpdkJuw9Fv3zwq5

The pro­gramme will include the ethno­graph­ic writ­ing work­shop Weav­ing the Worlds: Sto­ry­telling for Heal­ing, led by Paul Stoller, tak­ing place on 23–24 September

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Online Poet­ry Work­shop: „Word Medicine”
Octo­ber, 7–8.30pm (UK time)
Online via Zoom
Cost: By dona­tion — all pro­ceeds sup­port sur­vivors of the Bhopal Gas Dis­as­ter and their families

On the night of 2–3 Decem­ber 1984, a Union Car­bide pes­ti­cide fac­to­ry in Bhopal, India, released methyl iso­cyanate and oth­er tox­ic sub­stances into dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed neigh­bour­hoods sur­round­ing the plant. More than half a mil­lion peo­ple were exposed, and thou­sands died in the imme­di­ate after­math. The con­se­quences of the dis­as­ter, how­ev­er, have extend­ed across gen­er­a­tions, with con­tin­u­ing health, envi­ron­men­tal, social and polit­i­cal effects for sur­vivors, their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties in Bhopal.

The Bhopal Med­ical Appeal is cur­rent­ly explor­ing the poten­tial of poet­ry and cre­ative writ­ing as forms through which the his­to­ry and con­tin­u­ing lega­cy of the dis­as­ter might be nar­rat­ed, remem­bered and col­lec­tive­ly engaged with. In June 2026, we began this explo­ration with Unprece­dent­ed Neg­li­gence: Col­lec­tive and Indi­vid­ual Respons­es to the Bhopal Dis­as­ter, an online poet­ry work­shop facil­i­tat­ed by poet and writer Hazel Stew­art. We are now pleased to invite you to Word Med­i­cine, the sec­ond work­shop in this series.

Facil­i­tat­ed by Hazel, the 90-minute work­shop marks the 30th anniver­sary of the Samb­hav­na Trust Clin­ic, which has pro­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ty-based health­care to sur­vivors and their fam­i­lies for three decades. Draw­ing on poems by Bhopali poets and oth­ers, Hazel will use poet­ry as a start­ing point for find­ing our own words. Through cre­ative writ­ing exer­cis­es and word­play, we will explore heal­ing, love, hope and care, while reflect­ing on the forms of cre­ativ­i­ty, resilience and col­lec­tive care that have emerged in Bhopal over the past four decades, along­side the con­tin­u­ing strug­gle for justice.

No pre­vi­ous writ­ing expe­ri­ence is required. Whether you reg­u­lar­ly write poet­ry or have nev­er tak­en part in a cre­ative writ­ing work­shop, you are warm­ly invit­ed to join us.

Book your place via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/word-medicine-poetry-workshop-tickets-2000962426482

We invite you to join us as we con­tin­ue to explore what poet­ry can make pos­si­ble in remem­ber­ing, respond­ing to, and telling the sto­ry of Bhopal.

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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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„Co-design­ing school-based men­tal health inter­ven­tions for young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies: learn­ing from glob­al evidence”

Guest speak­er: Dr Fiona Samuels, Wolf­son Insti­tute of Pop­u­la­tion Health, Queen Mary Uni­ver­si­ty of London

Date: Mon­day 12 Octo­ber 2026
Time: 1.00 pm
For­mat: Online

Reg­is­ter here: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/7493d1b5-9311–4c10-b47e-bc08ccd2d9b3@10efe0bd-a030-4bca-809c-b5e6745e499a

Evi­dence sug­gests that school-based men­tal health pro­grammes can be effec­tive in pro­mot­ing pos­i­tive men­tal health and well­be­ing among young peo­ple. This webi­nar will explore how co-designed and co-cre­at­ed approach­es, involv­ing young peo­ple, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, can improve the rel­e­vance, uptake, effec­tive­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of interventions.

Draw­ing on research in Tan­za­nia, Viet­nam, Cam­bo­dia and the UK, Fiona will share key find­ings, lessons learned and future oppor­tu­ni­ties to sup­port youth men­tal health.

About our guest speak­er: Dr Fiona Samuels is Read­er in Glob­al Health and Inequal­i­ties and Co-Lead of the Glob­al Pub­lic Health Unit at the Wolf­son Insti­tute of Pop­u­la­tion Health, Queen Mary Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. An anthro­pol­o­gist with more than two decades of expe­ri­ence work­ing at the research-pol­i­cy inter­face, Fiona’s work focus­es on men­tal health and psy­choso­cial well­be­ing, gen­der-based vio­lence, mater­nal and repro­duc­tive health, and health sys­tems strength­en­ing. She is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in co-design, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry approach­es and the social deter­mi­nants of health and wellbeing.

The Social Sci­ences & Human­i­ties Webi­nar Series pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for staff, stu­dents and part­ners to hear from lead­ing researchers work­ing across a broad range of dis­ci­plines and top­ics rel­e­vant to health, well­be­ing and care.

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CfP for the work­shop “Pub­lic Health After the Pan­dem­ic: Unpack­ing (Bio-)Moralities”
April 1–2, 2027

Health Mat­ters Research Group | Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy & Glob­al Health
Depart­ment of Social and Cul­tur­al Anthropology
Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna

The call for abstracts is open until Novem­ber 30, 2026. Sub­mit your abstracts, and feel free to cir­cu­late the call!

Approx­i­mate­ly five years after the declared end of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, this inter­na­tion­al work­shop opens a space to reflect on the (bio-)moralities sus­tain­ing pub­lic health. The pan­dem­ic changed pub­lic health and how we engage with it, leav­ing traces that did not dis­ap­pear with the end of the emer­gency dec­la­ra­tion. We invite con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the assump­tions, val­u­a­tions, and jus­ti­fi­ca­tions through which pub­lic health prob­lems and their tar­get pop­u­la­tions are defined, imag­ined, and gov­erned, and that explore whose lives and which forms of life pub­lic health comes to care for.

We wel­come con­tri­bu­tions unpack­ing pub­lic health moral­i­ties along three inter­re­lat­ed axes:

- Tem­po­ral­i­ties — how pub­lic health moral­i­ties shape which pasts are remem­bered, which lives are cared for in the present, and which futures are imag­ined and pre­pared for.

- Geo­gra­phies — how pub­lic health moral­i­ties sus­tain or con­test unequal val­u­a­tions of lives across local, region­al, nation­al, glob­al, and plan­e­tary scales.

- Tech­nolo­gies and Infra­struc­tures — how pub­lic health moral­i­ties are mate­ri­al­ized in tech­nolo­gies and infrastructures.

We wel­come con­tri­bu­tions from anthro­pol­o­gy, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy stud­ies, polit­i­cal sci­ence, pub­lic health ethics, glob­al health, and adja­cent fields, engag­ing empir­i­cal­ly, con­cep­tu­al­ly, or method­olog­i­cal­ly with these themes.

Sub­mis­sion: Abstracts of up to 250 words and a short biog­ra­phy (up to 100 words), by Novem­ber 30, 2026, to biomoralities@kl.ac.at. Noti­fi­ca­tions by Decem­ber 15, 2026. 

Accept­ed par­tic­i­pants will cir­cu­late an extend­ed abstract (1,500–3,000 words) by March 12, 2027.

Read the extend­ed call in the attach­ment and stay up to date on the work­shop: https://www.kl.ac.at/en/university/faculties/department-biomedical-and-public-health-ethics/projects/testing-biogovernance

Orga­nized by the „Test­ing (Bio-)Governance” project (Aus­tri­an Sci­ence Fund/FWF): Mara Köh­ler, Paul Just, Ingrid Met­zler (KLU Krems); Erik Aar­den, Jana Kun­schitz, Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Kla­gen­furt); Keerthi Dub­bala, Julia Aschauer-Geg­n­er (Dept. of Bio­med­ical Ethics and Pub­lic Health Ethics, KLU Krems); Katha­ri­na T. Paul (Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna).

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Ein­ladung zum Adventstr­e­f­fen „Situ­ierte Entschei­dun­gen im Kon­text von Gesund­heit und Krankheit”
Kom­mis­sion für Medi­z­inan­thro­polo­gie der DGEKW
Do, 04. und Fr, 05. Dezem­ber 2025
Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität Berlin
March­straße 23, Raum 3.048

Im Fokus ste­hen medi­zinis­che Entschei­dun­gen, wie sie im Zusam­men­spiel mit sozialen, kul­turellen, poli­tis­chen und tech­nol­o­gis­chen Bedin­gun­gen entste­hen – oft über­raschend, wider­sprüch­lich oder kreativ. Die Beiträge loten das Ver­hält­nis aus – the­o­retisch, empirisch, konzep­tionell und method­isch. Das aus­führliche Pro­gramm find­en Sie unten

Während des Adventstr­e­f­fen ist auch ein Kom­mis­sion­str­e­f­fen geplant. Die Ver­anstal­tung find­et auss­chließlich in Präsenz statt. Tagungssprache ist Deutsch. Es wer­den keine Anmelde- oder Tagungs­ge­bühren erhoben. Soll­ten Sie darüber hin­aus an ein­er Ver­net­zung inter­essiert sein oder im Jour­nal-Club der Kom­mis­sion mitwirken wollen, der sich an ver­schiede­nen Ter­mi­nen im Semes­ter trifft, melden Sie sich gerne bei uns.Bei Inter­esse melden Sie sich bitte bis zum 24. Okto­ber 2025 an unter entscheidungen@protonmail.com.

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Round­table „Unty­ing social suf­fer­ing: wit­ness­ing and repa­ra­tion in the con­text of chronicity”
VANDA Conference
16 to 19 Feb­ru­ary 2027
Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna

We are pleased to invite you to sub­mit an abstract for our round­table „Unty­ing social suf­fer­ing: wit­ness­ing and repa­ra­tion in the con­text of chronic­i­ty” at the VANDA Con­fer­ence, tak­ing place from 16 to 19 Feb­ru­ary 2027 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na. You can sub­mit your paper here until 12 Octo­ber 2026. The round­table is con­ceived as a space for col­lec­tive dis­cus­sion, and con­tri­bu­tions do not need to take the form of a fin­ished paper or ful­ly devel­oped argu­ment. The idea is to bring dif­fer­ent research inter­ests and expe­ri­ences into dia­logue, and explore con­nec­tions, ten­sions and ques­tions across our work. We hope to use the round­table for­mat to think togeth­er through ques­tions that may still be open, unset­tled or tak­ing shape.

Orga­niz­ers: Beat­riz Aragón Martín, Daniela Jacob Pin­to, Lucia Mair. Dis­cus­sant: Miri­am Tickin

Abstract: Social suf­fer­ing is cre­at­ed in many ways by the func­tion­ing of soci­eties we live in. This suf­fer­ing may be bod­i­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal, moral and rela­tion­al, often ongo­ing, and not the result of spec­tac­u­lar events of vio­lence. Rather, it is embed­ded in the ways in which dai­ly life is repro­duced, in the worlds of work, in how care is giv­en or with­drawn. In this sense, social suf­fer­ing is unequal­ly dis­trib­uted through soci­ety, with cer­tain sub­jects and groups being more exposed to social suf­fer­ing, harm and pre­ma­ture death than oth­ers. This round­table intends to devel­op on this issue from the per­spec­tives of wit­ness­ing and repa­ra­tion. Indeed, med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers and anthro­pol­o­gists are also the wit­ness­es of the suf­fer­ing of their patients and inter­locu­tors: pain is not only an indi­vid­ual human expe­ri­ence but a demand for its recog­ni­tion (Das, 2007), and this moral rela­tion­ship is per­va­sive in med­ical prac­tice as well as the prac­tice of med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy. In this con­text, we seek to reflect on what it means to bear wit­ness to the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers (per­son­al­ly but also for the dis­ci­pline): what does it take to become a “wit­ness­ing pro­fes­sion­al” (Lip­ton 2026)? What forms of repa­ra­tion can be sought through the prac­tice of bear­ing wit­ness? What does it mean to repair in the con­text of struc­tur­al vio­lence? What forms of recog­ni­tion are pos­si­ble with­in this context?

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„Epi­demi­o­log­i­cal Sur­veil­lance in the Glob­al South”
22–23 Feb­ru­ary 2027
Manchester

Dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sions is 30 Sep­tem­ber 2026

While epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance is under­stood as a medico-tech­ni­cal or bureau­crat­ic response to dis­eases occur­rences and/or epi­dem­ic sit­u­a­tions, it is also a his­tor­i­cal­ly sit­u­at­ed, mate­ri­al­ly ground­ed, and social­ly embed­ded prac­tice. Schol­ar­ship in the his­to­ry of med­i­cine, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy stud­ies and med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy has shown that sur­veil­lance activ­i­ties emerge with­in par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal, epis­temic and insti­tu­tion­al con­texts, reveal­ing how dis­eases and pop­u­la­tions are made vis­i­ble and gov­ern­able (Fou­cault 1977; Arm­strong 1995; Bash­ford 2006; Weir and Mykhalovskiy 2010; Fearn­ley 2010; Bar­ney 2014; Engel­mann 2020).

Adopt­ing such a per­spec­tive brings to the fore the frag­ile and often invis­i­ble epis­temic, mate­r­i­al and human infra­struc­tures that under­gird and enable sur­veil­lance (Keck and Lakoff 2013; Reubi and Cochrane 2025). These infra­struc­tures include lab­o­ra­to­ries and diag­nos­tic tests, med­ical cat­e­gories and clas­si­fi­ca­tion man­u­als, paper or dig­i­tal report­ing forms and records as well as social sur­vey method­olo­gies and map­ping strate­gies. They also encom­pass sci­en­tif­ic and expert net­works, knowl­edge about dis­eases, envi­ron­ments, pop­u­la­tions and cul­tures as well as phil­an­thropic, com­mer­cial and state fund­ing streams. Most impor­tant­ly per­haps, they include the peo­ple who car­ry out sur­veil­lance – doc­tors in hos­pi­tals, tech­ni­cians in the lab, data col­lec­tors at sen­tinel sites, ento­mol­o­gists in the field, activists in the com­mu­ni­ty – with their con­cerns, inter­ests and beliefs (Shapin 1989; Geissler and Molyneux 2011; Biruk 2018; Keck 2020).

These infra­struc­tures help make up the world in which we live (Hack­ing 2002; Law 2009; Boell­storff 2011; Lowray 2017; Reubi 2020). They bring about not just new kinds of peo­ple and soci­eties but also new sorts of epi­demics and dis­eases as well as patho­log­i­cal ecolo­gies and envi­ron­ments. Sur­veil­lance infra­struc­tures and their world-mak­ing pow­ers are embed­ded in and shaped by sci­en­tif­ic, polit­i­cal and com­mer­cial projects, whose beliefs, inter­ests and hier­ar­chies they, in turn, help sup­port and rein­force. The medico-topo­graph­i­cal sur­veys used by Euro­pean mil­i­tary doc­tors dur­ing the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry col­o­niza­tion of Asia and Africa are a good illus­tra­tion (Arnold 1993; Moussy 2015; Koch 2017). As tools for know­ing the trop­i­cal lands of jun­gles and fevers opened through mil­i­tary con­quest, these sur­veys were key to rul­ing and exploit­ing the colonies, con­sol­i­dat­ing a fas­ci­na­tion with phys­i­cal geog­ra­phy and the rela­tion­ship between cli­mate, race, and health. Sim­i­lar­ly, mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry colo­nial trop­i­cal med­i­cine experts and ento­mol­o­gists deployed eco­log­i­cal inspec­tions and lab­o­ra­to­ry analy­ses to map the asso­ci­a­tions between cli­mate, soil, plants, pathogens, ani­mals and humans that, they believed, explained epi­demics like yel­low fever and malar­ia (Ander­son 2004; Weibel 2015; Cum­misky 2020). Like­wise, late twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry talk of a grow­ing can­cer epi­dem­ic in the glob­al South based on data col­lec­tion at sen­tinel sites and math­e­mat­i­cal fore­cast mod­el­ing has been increas­ing­ly mobilised by post­colonies build­ing nation­al health­care sys­tems and transna­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies in search of new mar­kets (Vaugh­an 2018; Fras­er et al. forthcoming).

We warm­ly invite any­one inter­est­ed in con­tribut­ing to dis­cus­sions on the his­to­ry and social study of epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance in the glob­al south. We are inter­est­ed in papers that engage with some of the fol­low­ing questions:

1. How do dif­fer­ent log­ics of epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance, includ­ing mil­i­tary, polic­ing, and car­ing ratio­nal­i­ties, coex­ist, over­lap, or come into ten­sion across his­tor­i­cal contexts?

2. What human, mate­r­i­al, eco­log­i­cal, polit­i­cal, and epis­temic infra­struc­tures under­pin epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance, and how are these infra­struc­tures assem­bled, main­tained, and transformed?

3. How have projects of empire, post­colo­nial nation‑building, and com­mer­cial inter­ests shaped the devel­op­ment, organ­i­sa­tion, and deploy­ment of epi­demi­o­log­i­cal surveillance?

4. What sci­en­tif­ic and polit­i­cal lan­guages, nar­ra­tives, and forms of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion struc­ture epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance prac­tices and ren­der dis­eases, epi­demics, human and ani­mal pop­u­la­tions and ecolo­gies legible?

5. What mate­r­i­al infra­struc­tures and tech­nolo­gies, such as trans­port sys­tems, lab­o­ra­to­ry equip­ment, dig­i­tal plat­forms, satel­lite tech­nolo­gies, and paper or elec­tron­ic report­ing tools, are required for epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance to function?

6. What human com­mu­ni­ties, expert cul­tures, and sci­en­tif­ic net­works are cen­tral to the oper­a­tion and cir­cu­la­tion of epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance systems?

7. Who are the often-invis­i­ble tech­ni­cians, inter­me­di­aries, and forms of labour that sus­tain epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance infra­struc­tures, and how is their work organ­ised and valued?

8. What are the tem­po­ral after­lives of epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance infra­struc­tures, includ­ing their per­sis­tence, decay, reuse, or trans­for­ma­tion into new forms and practices?

9. What does epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance pro­duce, beyond the detec­tion of dis­ease itself?

The work­shop will be the occa­sion to iden­ti­fy stand­out con­tri­bu­tions for a forth­com­ing Spe­cial Issue on epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance in the glob­al south, to be pub­lished in a lead­ing jour­nal. The work­shop will be held in per­son, with lim­it­ed hybrid access. It will take place over two days, start­ing at lunchtime on Mon­day 22 Feb­ru­ary and fin­ish­ing late after­noon on Tues­day 23 Feb­ru­ary 2027, at the Cen­tre for the His­to­ry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Med­i­cine, Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter. Lunch, coffee/tea and din­ner will be pro­vid­ed. Lim­it­ed funds for trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able if needed.

The dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sions is 30 Sep­tem­ber 2026. Please send a 250-word abstract and author bio to Adedamo­la Adeti­ba (adedamola.adetiba@manchester.ac.uk), Thande­ka Cochrane (thandeka.cochrane@anthro.ox.ac.uk) and David Reubi (david.reubi@kcl.ac.uk). For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Adedamo­la Adeti­ba, Thande­ka Cochrane or David Reubi at the email address­es above.

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CfP for a pan­el: Age­ing Mul­ti­ple: Nav­i­gat­ing Rela­tion­al and Social Lives of Age­ing, Car­ing and Dying at ISA World Con­gress of Soci­ol­o­gy 2027 in Gwangju, Korea 4–10 July.

This session—listed under both RC11 Soci­ol­o­gy of Aging and RC15 Soci­ol­o­gy of Health —sits at the inter­sec­tion of age­ing, car­ing, and dying. We invite cut­ting-edge cross-dis­ci­pli­nary schol­ar­ship to cou­ple age­ing with process­es of car­ing, dying, and end­ings to con­sid­er it to be fun­da­men­tal­ly social, rela­tion­al, and mul­ti­ple. Top­ics might include but are not lim­it­ed to:

– How epistemic/conceptual ten­sions emerge when age­ing, car­ing, and dying intersect;
– How insti­tu­tion­al and struc­tur­al expec­ta­tions and (gen­dered, classed, racial, and oth­er) ideals about age­ing, car­ing, dying, and loss are formed, sus­tained, and challenged;
– How emo­tion and affect play a role in under­stand­ing, expe­ri­enc­ing, and sup­port­ing age­ing, car­ing, and dying, and;
– How exist­ing and emerg­ing inter­sec­tions of age­ing, car­ing, and dying trans­form every­day lives, infra­struc­tures, insti­tu­tions, and (imagined/collective) futures.

Abstract could be sub­mit­ted by vis­it­ing ISA World Con­gress of Soci­ol­o­gy Abstract sub­mis­sion por­tal: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2027/cfp.cgi. Any ques­tions please don’t hes­i­tate to reach out. 

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