Health Activism: Instigating Change in Systems of Care

Datum
20. Feb­ru­ar – 21. Feb­ru­ar 2025 

Call For Papers for a Work­shop at Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam (UvA)

Call For Papers
Health Activism: Insti­gat­ing Change in Sys­tems of Care
Host­ed by Dr. Natashe Lemos Dekker and Dr. Maria Hagan
Cen­tre for Social Sci­ence in Glob­al Health, Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam (UvA)
Thurs­day 20th & Fri­day 21st of Feb­ru­ary 2025 

Cracks and gaps in our health care sys­tems have been increas­ing­ly exposed in recent years, both in terms of these sys­tems’ capac­i­ty and in terms of restric­tions regard­ing whom they cater to and how. These frail­ties have been empha­sised in moments of cri­sis such as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but also emerge out of shift­ing polit­i­cal land­scapes which seek to restrict the rights of women, asy­lum seek­ers and peo­ple with a dis­abil­i­ty, among many oth­ers. Against this socio-polit­i­cal back­drop, revived and new­ly emerg­ing forms of health activism can be dis­tin­guished. In many coun­tries around the world, health care pro­fes­sion­als, infor­mal care­givers, and those in need of care are active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in move­ments and col­lec­tive actions, to address injus­tices and exclu­sion, and to fill the gaps in exist­ing health care systems.
This work­shop seeks to spark con­ver­sa­tion around acts of care and social protest, pay­ing close atten­tion to how pro­fes­sion­al and infor­mal care­givers (rang­ing from doc­tors and nurs­es to patients, fam­i­lies and sol­i­dar­i­ty actors) engage in forms of activism and gal­vanise move­ments to address health con­cerns and stim­u­late change in (pub­lic) health sys­tems. We are inter­est­ed in how health activism move­ments come into being in dif­fer­ent glob­al con­texts, and how they impact (strength­en or inter­fere with) ver­nac­u­lar modes of cop­ing with ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty, injury and loss. Togeth­er, we will inter­ro­gate how health activism impacts nation­al health poli­cies and sys­tems, and how such ini­tia­tives trav­el beyond geo­graph­i­cal boundaries. 

As part of the event, med­ical and envi­ron­men­tal anthro­pol­o­gist Dr. Alex Nad­ing will join us as a keynote speak­er. He will give a pub­lic lec­ture on Thurs­day the 20th of Feb­ru­ary between 15:00 and 17.00. Dr. Nad­ing is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the author of Mos­qui­to Trails: Ecol­o­gy, Health, and the Pol­i­tics of Entan­gle­ment (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press 2014) and of The Kid­ney and the Cane: Plan­e­tary Health and Plan­ta­tion Labor in Nicaragua, which will be pub­lished with Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press in 2025. keynote speak­er. He will give a pub­lic lec­ture on Thurs­day the 20th of Feb­ru­ary between 15:00 and 17.00. Dr. Nad­ing is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the author of Mos­qui­to Trails: Ecol­o­gy, Health, and the Pol­i­tics of Entan­gle­ment (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press 2014) and of The Kid­ney and the Cane: Plan­e­tary Health and Plan­ta­tion Labor in Nicaragua, which will be pub­lished with Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press in 2025.

By bring­ing exam­ples of health activism ini­tia­tives from dif­fer­ent con­texts into con­ver­sa­tion, we aim to shed light on the dif­fer­ent ways in which these move­ments are sparked, how they oper­ate and insti­gate change. The mul­ti-sit­ed think­ing devel­oped through­out the work­shop will form the basis for a con­crete dis­cus­sion on how col­lab­o­ra­tive knowl­edge-build­ing might stim­u­late practice. 

Papers may include, but are not lim­it­ed to, the fol­low­ing top­ics (all region­al focus­es are welcome): 

– Grass­roots ini­tia­tives pro­vid­ing (health)care to under-resourced areas and under­served communities
– Con­tem­po­rary or his­tor­i­cal stud­ies of social move­ments around issues of health inequal­i­ty and disability
– Inter­sec­tions of health, (in)justice, and the emer­gence of social movements
– Prac­tices of “patient”-led advo­ca­cy and activism
– Prac­tices of care and advo­ca­cy by pro­fes­sion­al care providers with­in spaces of care (hos­pi­tals, clin­ics, health cen­tres, homes, safehouses…) 

We will ask par­tic­i­pants to cir­cu­late short papers before the work­shop, so we can famil­iarise our­selves with each other’s work ahead of time. The work­shop will be organ­ised in the­mat­ic ses­sions deter­mined accord­ing to the papers we receive, and each par­tic­i­pant will short­ly present their work (15–20 min­utes) fol­lowed by com­ments and dis­cus­sion. In sum, the work­shop will map diverse forms of health activism by bring­ing togeth­er a selec­tion of local­ized accounts. Hon­ing in on the polit­i­cal lay­ered­ness of glob­al health poli­cies and prac­tices, it will shed light on the poten­tial val­ue for glob­al health pro­grammes to engage with local-lev­el ini­tia­tives. These con­ver­sa­tions will also form the basis for an online publication. 

If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing part in the work­shop, please send an abstract (max. 200 words) of the paper you would like to con­tribute to the work­shop. Please send this to Maria Hagan (m.h.hagan@uva.nl) and Natashe Lemos Dekker (n.lemosdekker@uva.nl) by Mon­day the 25th of Novem­ber 2024. Appli­cants will be noti­fied of accep­tance by Mon­day the 2nd of Decem­ber 2024.
Lunch will be pro­vid­ed on both days of the work­shop. Trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion costs, how­ev­er, unfor­tu­nate­ly can­not be covered.
This event is sup­port­ed by a 2024 Social Sci­ence in Glob­al Health (SSGH) small grant.