Anthropological Perspectives on Well-being

Datum
03. Novem­ber – 08. Novem­ber 2025 

Call for Papers for the World Anthro­po­log­i­cal Union (WAU) 2025 Con­gress (hybrid)

As part of the „Age­ing and Life­course” IUAES affil­i­a­tion, we are pleased to announce that the Call for Papers for the World Anthro­po­log­i­cal Union (WAU) 2025 Con­gress is now open! The Con­gress will take place in a hybrid format—both onsite in Antigua, Guatemala, and online—from Novem­ber 3–8, 2025. More info here: https://www.waucongress2025.org/call-for-papers/

Anthro­po­log­i­cal Per­spec­tives on Well-being (Track 13)

Both qual­i­ty of life and people’s abil­i­ty to con­tribute towards mean­ing and pur­pose in every­day life are essen­tial in under­stand­ing well-being (WHO, 2021). Nonethe­less, it has pri­mar­i­ly been approached through a bio­med­ical lens, fore­ground­ing phys­i­cal health and dis­ease pre­ven­tion. Although there is a grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the psy­cho­log­i­cal and social aspects of well-being (and, by that exten­sion, health), these aspects remain under­mined. At the same time, there have been numer­ous shifts and con­ti­nu­ities with increas­ing health inequal­i­ties in glob­al health gov­er­nance and health-relat­ed knowl­edge pro­duc­tion expe­ri­enced across the life course. For instance, well-being is increas­ing­ly medi­at­ed through dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, leisure activ­i­ties, and con­sumer mar­kets. To empha­sise the deeply embed­ded nature of well-being and health in cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal, and his­tor­i­cal con­texts, there is a des­per­ate need to probe new­er approach­es to holis­tic social and cul­tur­al deter­mi­nants of health and the over­all well-being of indi­vid­u­als and populations.

This pan­el aims to crit­i­cal­ly engage with med­ical plu­ral­ism, struc­tur­al inequal­i­ties, care­giv­ing prac­tices, and new infra­struc­tures catered to well-being, and biopo­lit­i­cal dimen­sions of well-being and health. We invite papers that focus on the lived expe­ri­ences of ill­ness, care­giv­ing, eth­i­cal dilem­mas in med­i­cine and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, and the role of the state and mar­kets in shap­ing well-being and health in con­tem­po­rary soci­eties. By bring­ing togeth­er schol­ars work­ing broad­ly in (but not lim­it­ed to) Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, this pan­el aims to fos­ter dis­cus­sions on how med­ical cul­tures, the tech­no­log­i­cal turn, and cap­i­tal flows shape over­all well-being and health out­comes, influ­ence care­giv­ing and cre­ate new real­i­ties. Over­all, we are inter­est­ed in the inter­sec­tion of med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy, med­ical sys­tems and polit­i­cal econ­o­my, espe­cial­ly con­cern­ing pop­u­la­tions in the mar­gins (e.g. age­ing pop­u­la­tions, dis­abled bod­ies, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, and others).

This leads us to such impor­tant ques­tions, like:

1. How do expe­ri­ences (struc­tur­al inequal­i­ties and care­giv­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties) through­out the life course shape meaning(s) and experience(s) of well-being?
2. Do glob­al health poli­cies rein­force or chal­lenge exist­ing health inequal­i­ties (espe­cial­ly in the wake of grow­ing pan­demics and epi­demics) and their inter­ac­tion with his­tor­i­cal and polit­i­cal con­texts in (re)defining med­ical pluralism?
3. How do dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies medi­ate the expe­ri­ence of well-being among mar­gin­alised sec­tions? Does it con­tribute towards grow­ing social inequal­i­ties in health­care across the world?
4. How do non-med­ical spaces (leisure, com­mu­ni­ty clubs, online groups) con­tribute towards improved health out­comes, and what pol­i­cy impli­ca­tions do they hold for indi­vid­u­als across age groups and societies?
5. What could be the method­olog­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties for under­stand­ing lives in grow­ing com­mod­i­fied and mar­ke­tised ideals of well-being (well-ness indus­tries, self-care markets)?
We look for­ward to bring­ing togeth­er ethno­graph­ic, his­tor­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions from anthro­pol­o­gy, soci­ol­o­gy, pub­lic health, and allied dis­ci­plines. Papers address­ing region­al or transna­tion­al dynam­ics of health and med­i­cine from the Glob­al South are encouraged.