Aging in the Pandemic Era

Datum
14. Okto­ber – 15. Okto­ber 2022 

Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence at the Depart­ment of Social Anthro­pol­o­gy and His­to­ry, Uni­ver­si­ty of the Aegean, Greece.

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Aging in the Pan­dem­ic Era

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Aging in the Pan­dem­ic Era

The Depart­ment of Social Anthro­pol­o­gy and His­to­ry, Uni­ver­si­ty of the Aegean, has the plea­sure to invite you to the Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence “Aging in the pan­dem­ic era”, that will take place on Octo­ber 14^th and 15^th in Myti­lene, Greece. The con­fer­ence will have a hybrid for­mat with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of either phys­i­cal or dig­i­tal atten­dance. The con­fer­ence is orga­nized by the Lab of Fam­i­ly and Kin­ship Stud­ies under the research pro­gram “BIO-AGE”, “The bioso­cial expe­ri­ence of aging dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic”, fund­ed by the Hel­lenic Foun­da­tion of Research and Inno­va­tion (https://bio-age.weebly.com/). 

The pan­dem­ic has led to world­wide recon­fig­u­ra­tions caus­ing mul­ti­ple, imme­di­ate, and long-term effects in every­day and insti­tu­tion­al life. The lives of the elder­ly have often been at the cen­tre of atten­tion, most­ly framed via bio­med­icalised risk dis­cours­es, while their own expe­ri­ences and under­stand­ings of life in the pan­dem­ic era has yet to be elu­ci­dat­ed. The con­fer­ence seeks to con­tribute to the under­stand­ing of the soci­etal con­se­quences of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in rela­tion to the elder­ly (age 65 and over) and to elu­ci­date the (g)local con­fig­u­ra­tions of the ways the dom­i­nant bio­med­ical mobi­liza­tion fol­low­ing the pan­dem­ic con­junc­ture is mor­phed into a biopo­lit­i­cal project.

We invite con­tri­bu­tions from dif­fer­ent ethno­graph­ic set­tings that unrav­el what we see as a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of expe­ri­ences and con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tions regard­ing risk, respon­si­bil­i­ty, (dis)continuities in care rela­tions, inter- and intra-gen­er­a­tional ten­sions, through the prism of the elder­ly expe­ri­ence of the pan­dem­ic. We aim at dis­cussing the emer­gence of biovul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, biore­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and bio­care as cen­tral pil­lars of secur­ing soci­etal cohe­sion in life with/after COVID-19, through the prism of the elder­ly expe­ri­ence of the pan­dem­ic. Con­tri­bu­tions may be based on elder­ly dis­cours­es, on caregiver’s dis­cours­es, on for­mal expert’s and gov­ern­men­tal dis­cours­es. More specif­i­cal­ly, we invite schol­ars from all fields of social sci­ences to present their work on top­ics such as:

1)    The study of the bioso­cial con­struc­tions of aging.

2)    Emerg­ing con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tions of age-relat­ed vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and relat­ed practices.

3)    Con­ti­nu­ities and dis­con­ti­nu­ities in forms of care, from kin­care to bio­care.

4)    The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of key chal­lenges and poten­tial inter­ven­tions in rela­tion to elder­ly mobil­i­ty and accessibility.

5)    Dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and emerg­ing forms of dig­i­tal intimacy.

6)    Formal state and bio­med­ical dis­cours­es and prac­tices as they con­struct life with/after COVID-19 for elder­ly life.