Konferenz

Bod­ies, Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, Empowerment
Symposium
Orgniz­ers: Aman­da Lubit, Mile­na Williamson, and Maruš­ka Svašek.
Time: Fri­day 6 March 2026
Place: Wolf­son Lec­ture The­atre, Sea­mus Heaney Cen­tre, 38–40 Uni­ver­si­ty Road, Belfast

Call for Con­tri­bu­tions (dead­line: 15 Jan 2026)

Cen­tre for Cre­ative Ethnog­ra­phy, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sea­mus Heaney Cen­tre, invites aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents, poets and oth­ers to par­tic­i­pate in a one-day, in-per­son sym­po­sium. The objec­tive is to employ cre­ative ethnog­ra­phy, poet­ry, and oth­er modes of artis­tic explo­ration to explore how inequal­i­ties relat­ed to inter­sec­tion­al­i­ties of gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty, race, reli­gion, class, age, and/or dis­abil­i­ty are

– embod­ied and experienced
– embed­ded in wider soci­etal structures
– politi­cised and resisted

Bod­ies: We invite sub­mis­sions that inves­ti­gate phys­i­cal­i­ty, aging, mor­tal­i­ty, emo­tion­al inter­ac­tion, indi­vid­ual bod­ies and body politics.

Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties: Relat­ed ques­tions around inequal­i­ties, oppres­sion, inter­de­pen­dence, and expe­ri­ences of dis­em­pow­er­ment and trau­ma are high­ly relevant.

Empow­er­ment: We also wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that exam­ine broad­er themes of bod­i­ly agency, resis­tance, and transformation.

Con­trib­u­tors might sim­i­lar­ly con­sid­er rela­tion­ships between artist’s bod­ies and bod­ies of work, explor­ing how con­crete works exist in space, cul­ture and soci­ety. Anoth­er rel­e­vant ques­tion is how cre­ative prac­tice can make us as cre­ators both vul­ner­a­ble and empow­ered. What are the com­pli­ca­tions of try­ing to express

- an indi­vid­ual experience

“The days are get­ting longer now, how­ev­er many of them / I have left. / And the pen­cil I am writ­ing this with, old as it is, will eas­i­ly / out­last their end.” –Cia­ran Carson’s “Claude Mon­et, Artist’s Gar­den at Vétheuil, 1880)

- a col­lec­tive experience

(“All atti­tudes, all the shape­li­ness, all the belong­ings of my or your body or of any one’s body” –Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric”)

We encour­age, but do not require, sub­mis­sions that incor­po­rate a per­for­ma­tive ele­ment. Per­for­mances can include, but are not lim­it­ed to, read­ings, dance, visu­al arts and crafts, sound, and film.

FORMAT: Each con­trib­u­tor will have up to 15 min­utes for their pre­sen­ta­tion, demon­stra­tion and/or per­for­mance. If you wish to con­tribute, please send a 200-word abstract and a 100-word bio to CFCE@qub.ac.uk by Jan­u­ary 15, 2025. Please spec­i­fy the for­mat of your con­tri­bu­tion. If you are doing a demon­stra­tion and/or per­for­mance please let us know what that will involve.

KEYNOTE: Bebe Ashley

Bebe lives in North­ern Ire­land. Her debut col­lec­tion Gold Light Shin­ing (Ban­shee Press) was select­ed for Read Mór in 2022. In 2023, Bebe received the Ivan Juritz Prize for Cre­ative Exper­i­ment (Text) for work which was lat­er pub­lished in her sec­ond poet­ry col­lec­tion Har­bour Doubts. In 2024, Bebe received a Cre­ative Prac­ti­tion­er Bur­sary from Belfast City Coun­cil, and in 2025, received the British Coun­cil Fel­low­ship for Bun­danon, Aus­tralia. For more details, please see here: http://www.bebe-ashley.com/

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CfA for a pan­el at EASST2026 Con­fer­ence Krakow: „Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Stud­ies. Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures”
Sep 8–11 2026
Dead­line Mar 9 

Cfp for an open pan­el “Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Stud­ies: Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures” (P050) at the EASST2026 Con­fer­ence in Krakow (Sep 8–11). The call for abstracts is open until March 9, 2026. Sub­mit your abstracts, and feel free to cir­cu­late the call!

Short Abstract: P050 Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Studies
Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures

This pan­el invites con­tri­bu­tions exam­in­ing the epis­te­molo­gies, ontolo­gies, moral­i­ties and pol­i­tics of test­ing in bio­med­i­cine and (pub­lic) health. We par­tic­u­lar­ly seek papers that explore how test­ing is done in prac­tice and how it might be done or con­fig­ured otherwise.

For more infor­ma­tion and to apply, see the attach­ment or visit:
Con­fer­ence Page: https://easst.net/conference/easst2026/easst2026-home/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easst2026/p/18029#

Please cir­cu­late the call and con­tact us if you have any questions.

Con­venors:

Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Kate­ri­na Vlan­toni (Nation­al and Kapodis­tri­an Uni­ver­si­ty of Athens)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Alpen Adria Uni­ver­sität Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sci­ences, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna)

Long Abstract:

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in STS and relat­ed fields have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of test­ing in bio­med­i­cine and health. Since the late 1980s, research has explored genet­ic test­ing as it has been envi­sioned and prac­ticed in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, and recre­ation­al con­texts, as well as the moral­i­ties embed­ded in the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works shap­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to the soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing con­tributes to mak­ing up peo­ple. More recent­ly, stud­ies have turned to test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies and gov­er­nance of test­ing, or the rise of self-test­ing prac­tices. Schol­ars have also ana­lyzed the visions, uses, and infra­struc­tures of test­ing in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and in the man­age­ment of dis­ease out­breaks, most notably dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this pan­el, we pro­pose to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open a dia­logue between these diverse strands of research. Build­ing on work devel­oped under the labels of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we sug­gest the label “bio­med­ical and health test­ing stud­ies” to fos­ter such engagement.

We invite empir­i­cal and con­cep­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions that address the epis­te­molo­gies, ontolo­gies, moral­i­ties, and pol­i­tics of test­ing across bio­med­ical and health domains. Pos­si­ble top­ics include test­ing in bio­med­ical, pub­lic health, and glob­al health con­texts; self-test­ing and tin­ker­ing; and the absences, con­tes­ta­tions, or refusals of test­ing. We par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that explore how bio­med­ical test­ing might be con­fig­ured oth­er­wise and how STS schol­ars can con­tribute to shap­ing the futures of health testing.

Petersen A and Pien­aar K (2021) Test­ing for Life? Regimes of Gov­er­nance in Diag­no­sis and Screen­ing. Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety 26(1): 7–23.

Street A and Kel­ly AH (2021) Intro­duc­tion: Diag­nos­tics, Med­ical Test­ing, and Val­ue in Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy. Med­i­cine Anthro­pol­o­gy The­o­ry 8(2). 2: 1–16.

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Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence „For a Bet­ter Pub­lic Health and Health­care: Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Solutions”
Mon­te­ca­ti­ni Terme (Italy)
13–15 March 2026

Good Health and Well-being is one of the 17 UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, close­ly inter­con­nect­ed with social chal­lenges, such as pover­ty and inequal­i­ty. Avoid­able poor health and inequal­i­ties in health and access to health­care per­sist across all coun­tries, while health­care costs con­tin­ue to rise. This con­fer­ence aims to stim­u­late mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary think­ing and action to devel­op solu­tions that grasp the oppor­tu­ni­ties offered by tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, while tack­ling the socio-eco­nom­ic deter­mi­nants of health and the effects of envi­ron­men­tal challenges.

Sus­tain­able health­care solu­tions and effec­tive pub­lic health deliv­ery require more than just stat­ed com­mit­ments — they demand con­crete action, inno­v­a­tive think­ing and sus­tained col­lab­o­ra­tion across sec­tors to enable a good patient expe­ri­ence and ensure effi­cient and sus­tain­able health ser­vices. This Inter­na­tion­al Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Con­fer­ence will bring togeth­er actors in the inter­con­nect­ed fields of pub­lic health, health care and envi­ron­ment to inves­ti­gate the state of health poli­cies and ser­vices across dif­fer­ent fields.
A key objec­tive is to devel­op syn­er­gies between aca­d­e­m­ic research, the man­age­ment of the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment, pub­lic health deliv­ery, health providers, pub­lic and pri­vate investors and pol­i­cy mak­ers. The aim is to stim­u­late an inte­grat­ed approach to address both imme­di­ate chal­lenges and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals, improv­ing effi­cien­cy, resilience and ser­vice acces­si­bil­i­ty to all com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, while pro­mot­ing a greater focus on reduc­ing demand upstream through appro­pri­ate pre­ven­tive approach­es in the phys­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and psy­choso­cial environment.

The Con­fer­ence will devel­op through work­shops and ple­nary ses­sions focused on three core areas and the com­ple­men­tary ways in which they impact the effi­cien­cy and resilience of pub­lic health poli­cies and health­care sys­tems, and people’s health and well­be­ing in a holis­tic sense. 

The three inter­con­nect­ed core areas are:
(1) Tack­ling Sys­temic Health­care Costs and Health­care Access;
(2) Pub­lic Health and the Phys­i­cal and Socio-eco­nom­ic Environment;
(3) Dig­i­tal Health Inno­va­tion and Respon­si­ble AI in Health Systems.

Fur­ther Details and Updates are avail­able at: Inter­na­tion­al Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Health Con­fer­ence 2026 | inter­na­tion­al urban sym­po­sium – ius

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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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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_Remaking Responsibility_7‑9 Octo­ber 2026

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