Konferenz

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.

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CfP for Pan­el „Rethink­ing health in the face of the bioso­cial chal­lenges of the Capitalo/Anthropocene”
World Anthro­po­log­i­cal Union (WAU) Congress
Novem­ber 3–8, 2025.
Antigua, Guatemala, and online

Sub­mis­sion Dead­line: May 3, 2025

Pan­el: Rethink­ing health in the face of the bioso­cial chal­lenges of the Capitalo/Anthropocene

Info: https://www.waucongress2025.org/panel/?id=315
World Anthro­po­log­i­cal Union (WAU) 2025 Con­gress – Unearthing Human­i­ty: Crit­i­cal and Urgent Epis­temic Rede­f­i­n­i­tions in World Anthropologies

Pan­el Abstract
(Non-) human pop­u­la­tions are inter­twined with indus­tri­al sub­stances with health impacts. Bio­physic­o­chem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions are accom­pa­nied by biopo­lit­i­cal process­es that fos­ter inequal­i­ties and psy­choso­cial suf­fer­ing, chal­leng­ing the epis­temic, onto­log­i­cal and eth­i­cal premis­es of anthro­pol­o­gy. How does the anthropocene/capitalocene rethink stud­ies from med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy and how does this sub­dis­ci­pline ques­tion and/or inter­pret the cur­rent epoch?

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CfP for Pan­el: „Rethink­ing health in the face of the bioso­cial chal­lenges of the Capitalo/Anthropocene”
World Anthro­po­log­i­cal Union (WAU) Con­gress, which will take place as a hybrid con­gress in Antigua, Guatemala, Novem­ber 3–8, 2025

Info: https://www.waucongress2025.org/panel/?id=315
World Anthro­po­log­i­cal Union (WAU) 2025 Con­gress – Unearthing Human­i­ty: Crit­i­cal and Urgent Epis­temic Rede­f­i­n­i­tions in World Anthropologies 

Pan­el Abstract: (Non-) human pop­u­la­tions are inter­twined with indus­tri­al sub­stances with health impacts. Bio­physic­o­chem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions are accom­pa­nied by biopo­lit­i­cal process­es that fos­ter inequal­i­ties and psy­choso­cial suf­fer­ing, chal­leng­ing the epis­temic, onto­log­i­cal and eth­i­cal premis­es of anthro­pol­o­gy. How does the anthropocene/capitalocene rethink stud­ies from med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy and how does this sub­dis­ci­pline ques­tion and/or inter­pret the cur­rent epoch?

Sub­mis­sion Dead­line: May 3, 2025

Con­tact:
Ivana Teix­eira: ivanasteixeira@gmail.com
Lau­ra Mon­te­si: laumontesi@gmail.com

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Call for Papers für die inter­diszi­plinäre Fach­ta­gung „Heil und Heilung. Zwis­chen The­olo­gie, Pop­u­lar­fröm­migkeit und Medizin”

Die Kom­mis­sion für Reli­giosität und Spir­i­tu­al­ität in der DGEVW ver­anstal­tet die Tagung in Koop­er­a­tion mit der Evan­ge­lis­chen Erwach­se­nen­bil­dung Mün­ster und dem Muse­um Relí­gio in Tel­gte. Sie wird vom 20. bis 22. Novem­ber 2025 im Muse­um Relí­gio in Tel­gte stattfinden.

Der Aufruf richtet sich sowohl an etablierte an Wissenschaftler*innen als auch an den akademis­chen Nach­wuchs aus Forschung und Kul­turin­sti­tu­tio­nen. Da alle Beiträge der Tagung in einem Sam­mel­band pub­liziert wer­den, sollen ins­beson­dere neue oder diskus­sion­swürdi­ge Forschungsergeb­nisse präsen­tiert wer­den. Kurze Abstracts vom max­i­mal 5.000 Zeichen mit ein­er Kurzvi­ta senden Sie bitte bis zum 11. Mai an fol­gende Adresse : Heike.Plass@ev-kirchenkreis-muenster.de oder anja.schoene@telgte.de. Die Auswahl wird bis zum 30. Mai 2025 getroffen.

Die Coro­na-Pan­demie hat Vorstel­lun­gen von Krankheit als Sünde oder Strafe her­vorgerufen, die spätestens seit der Mitte des 20. Jahrhun­dert als the­ol­o­gisch über­holt gel­ten. Im Dom­ra­dio wurde 2020 gefragt: Gibt es eine religiöse Dimen­sion von Krankheit­en? Peter Schal­len­berg, Pro­fes­sor für Moralthe­olo­gie an der The­ol­o­gis­chen Fakultät Pader­born, antwortete: „Wir wür­den heute sagen: Krankheit und Lei­den sind keine Sün­den­strafen, son­dern sind Ereignisse, die zum natur­wis­senschaftlichen Bere­ich des Men­schen und unser­er Welt gehören (…).“ Nichts­destotrotz pil­gern etwa 6 Mil­lio­nen Men­schen jährlich nach Lour­des, viele um das wun­dertätige Heil­wass­er zu trinken. Und der Besteller des Komik­ers Hape Ker­kel­ing „Ich bin dann mal weg“ aus dem Jahr 2006 über seine Erfahrun­gen auf dem Jakob­sweg nach San­ti­a­go de Com­postela ist auf eine über­wälti­gende Res­o­nanz gestoßen. Offen­sichtlich sind viele Men­schen auf der Suche nach Sinn und Heilung, die sie auch auf Pil­ger­reisen suchen. Es lohnt sich also, über die religiöse Dimen­sion von Krankheit und Gesund­heit zu diskutieren.

In der Bibel wird vielfach über Krankheit­en und Heilun­gen berichtet. Über Jahrhun­derte ver­fügte die Kirche über das Heilungsmonopol Gottes. Die Heilung erfol­gte in der Regel durch religiöse Mit­tel wie Gebete, Gelübde oder Opfer. Die Entwick­lung der mod­er­nen Medi­zin im 19. und 20. Jahrhun­dert führte dazu, dass die ther­a­peutis­che Kom­pe­tenz, die vorher den Kirchen zugeschrieben wurde, nun durch die Medi­zin über­nom­men wurde. So wird Krankheit nicht mehr als Sünde und Strafe gedeutet. Vielmehr begleit­en die The­olo­gien heute die Medi­zin mit ethis­chen Leitgedanken, wenn es beispiel­sweise um Fra­gen der Ster­be­hil­fe geht.

In der Volkskunde/Empirischen Kul­tur­wis­senschaft gehören Volksmedi­zin, medikale All­t­agskul­tur und Fröm­migkeits­geschichte zum Kanon des Fach­es. Viele Museen ver­fü­gen über Sachzeug­nisse zu Heil und Heilung und nicht zulet­zt in Wall­fahrtsmuseen spielt das The­ma eine wichtige Rolle. Darüber hin­aus sind in den let­zten Jahren Forschung­spro­jekt zwis­chen The­olo­gie und Medi­zin ent­standen, die den heilen­den Charak­ter von Spir­i­tu­al­ität erforschen.

Die Tagung „Heil und Heilung. Zwis­chen The­olo­gie, Pop­u­lar­fröm­migkeit und Medi­zin“ soll sich dem The­ma aus the­ol­o­gis­ch­er, kul­tur­wis­senschaftlich­er, medi­zinis­ch­er und psy­chol­o­gis­ch­er Per­spek­tive näh­ern. Da die Tagung im Muse­um Relí­gio stat­tfind­et, sind muse­ol­o­gis­che oder objek­t­be­zo­gene Beiträge beson­ders erwünscht:

Mögliche The­men kön­nten sein:

Krankheit und Gesund­heit aus the­ol­o­gis­ch­er Per­spek­tive (christlich, jüdisch, muslimisch…)
Spir­i­tu­al­ität als Ressource
Spir­i­tu­al Care
Self-Care-Praktiken
Wall­fahrt und Pilgern
Wunderheilungen
Heilungsgottesdienste
Gesundbeter:innen, Geistheiler:innen
Magis­che Heilungspraktiken
Zusam­men­spiel von The­olo­gie und Medi­zin am Lebensende
Votive und Anliegenbücher
Sachzeug­nisse zu Heil und Heilung aus kul­turgeschichtlichen Museen
Beschnei­dung aus medi­zinis­ch­er und religiös­er Perspektive
Spir­ituelle Bedeu­tung von Tätowierungen

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Nar­ra­tives of Care
20–21 Novem­ber 2025
Hybrid Sym­po­sium, Mel­bourne Aus­tralia; Online

** abstracts due 19 Sep­tem­ber 2025**

In recent years, care has received con­sid­er­able atten­tion both with­in acad­e­mia and in the pub­lic sphere. On one hand, care has emerged as a con­tem­po­rary buzz­word and fuzz­word (Corn­wall 2007) with­in wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed pop­u­lar dis­cours­es where it is often suf­fused with moral val­ues and nar­row ideals of per­son­hood. At the same time, care, care­work, and care prac­tices rep­re­sent con­test­ed sites and spaces of pol­i­cy inter­ven­tion, reg­u­la­tion, and insti­tu­tion­al man­age­ment. Yet, as has been not­ed, along­side such trends we may also iden­ti­fy sys­temic and per­va­sive cul­tures of care­less­ness, both banal and destruc­tive, that obscure, silence, and ren­der invis­i­ble the log­ics, pat­terns, and con­struc­tions that inform prac­tices and nar­ra­tives of care (Chatzi­dakas et al, 2020). While a pro­lif­er­a­tion of impor­tant recent schol­ar­ship has shed light on the prag­mat­ics and tech­nolo­gies of care in diverse set­tings (Mol 2008, Park and Fitzger­ald 2011, Seo 2020), less atten­tion has been paid to the nar­ra­tives that under­pin them, or to those nar­ra­tives and counter-nar­ra­tives that respond to diver­gent ethos and ethics of care.
As Arendt (1958) not­ed, atten­tion to sto­ry­telling, nar­ra­tive and dia­logue can be a crit­i­cal tool for under­stand­ing pow­er rela­tion­ships and con­test­ed per­spec­tives. By trac­ing how care is sto­ried in pub­lic dis­course, pol­i­cy doc­u­ments, media and artis­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tions, cul­tur­al texts, archives, or every­day con­ver­sa­tions, we uncov­er the log­ics and imag­i­nar­ies that shape care prac­tices and allow them to gain trac­tion or lose ground. Nar­ra­tives of care reveal the eth­i­cal com­mit­ments, cre­ativ­i­ty, and ide­o­log­i­cal frame­works that enable care, as well as the medi­ums, con­ven­tions, and gen­res through which care finds expres­sion. Care can be con­veyed through myth­ic tales, mun­dane descrip­tions, well-worn clich­es, bureau­crat­ic codes, unspo­ken sto­ries, endur­ing truths or per­sis­tent lies, mem­o­ry work, aspi­ra­tional polit­i­cal dec­la­ra­tions, or hero­ic sagas of human redemp­tion. Nar­ra­tives are not mere­ly descrip­tive; they weave mean­ing into care events, active­ly con­fig­ur­ing how care is under­stood, dis­trib­uted, and val­ued (Phillips et al2024). Nar­ra­tives can be recon­sti­tut­ed or repur­posed, lost and found (McGrana­han 2010, Roberts 2024). Their pow­er is in “autho­riz­ing, found­ing, and set­ting in place ways of expe­ri­enc­ing the world” (Cruick­shank 2000: 1). Nar­ra­tives legit­imise prac­tices of sol­i­dar­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty, while also nat­u­ral­is­ing hier­ar­chies and exclu­sions (Bell 2020, Cook and Trun­dle 2020, Mul­li­gan 2014). Under­stand­ing nar­ra­tives of care, there­fore, pro­vides a crit­i­cal lens for explor­ing how care prac­tices are enabled, resist­ed, or reimagined.

The Nar­ra­tives of Care sym­po­sium and asso­ci­at­ed edit­ed vol­ume recog­nise the impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion of nar­ra­tive to inter­ro­gat­ing the pol­i­tics and prac­tices of care. This inter­dis­ci­pli­nary sym­po­sium and edit­ed vol­ume will bring togeth­er researchers who approach care nar­ra­tives and nar­ra­tives of care from a range of dis­ci­pli­nary and method­olog­i­cal per­spec­tives, includ­ing: soci­ol­o­gy; pol­i­tics; anthro­pol­o­gy; lin­guis­tics; his­to­ry; Indige­nous stud­ies; lit­er­ary and film stud­ies; phi­los­o­phy; reli­gious stud­ies; devel­op­ment stud­ies; and gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty and diver­si­ty stud­ies. We wel­come paper pro­pos­als on top­ics that cen­tre the role of nar­ra­tive not as abstract rep­re­sen­ta­tion, but as thread­ed into the enact­ment of care. In par­tic­u­lar, we seek pro­pos­als that address:

• The role of moral econ­o­my in nar­ra­tives of care
• The role of reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in the con­struc­tion of nar­ra­tives of care
• Craft­ing care and meth­ods, includ­ing dia­log­i­cal nar­ra­tives of cares, the incor­po­ra­tion of poly­phon­ic voic­es, decen­tring author­i­ty, and voice in nar­ra­tives of care.
• Non-lan­guage-based nar­ra­tives of care
• The pol­i­tics of sto­ry­telling and nar­ra­tive in rela­tion to care, includ­ing the pol­i­tics of cru­el­ty and cyn­i­cism as well as of care and trust
• More-than-human nar­ra­tives of care
• The role of insti­tu­tions, risk, and reg­u­la­tion in nar­ra­tives of care
• Silences, omis­sions, and over­sights in the artic­u­la­tion of nar­ra­tives of care
• Tem­po­ral­i­ty, lin­ear­i­ty, and log­ic or illog­ic in nar­ra­tives of care

Con­venors:
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Tim­o­thy Jones (t.jones@latrobe.edu.au)
Dr. Natal­ie Araújo (n.araujo@latrobe.edu.au)
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Tar­ryn Phillips (tarryn.phillips@latrobe.edu.au
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor John Tay­lor (john.taylor@latrobe.edu.au)
Dr Cather­ine Trun­dle (c.trundle@latrobe.edu.au)

Sub­mis­sion Guidelines

Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sub­mit­ted via email to the con­venors by 19 Sep­tem­ber 2025. Sym­po­sium papers should be 2000–3000 words (20-minute papers). The sym­po­sium will be con­vened in hybrid for­mat online and at La Trobe Uni­ver­si­ty, Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia. Fol­low­ing the sym­po­sium, par­tic­i­pants may be invit­ed to con­tribute to an edit­ed vol­ume. Please con­tact the con­venors with any questions.
Please send abstracts to john.taylor@latrobe.edu.au (cc. tarryn.phillips@latrobe.edu.au)

REFERENCES

Bell, L. A. (2020). Sto­ry­telling for social jus­tice: con­nect­ing nar­ra­tive and the arts in antiracist teach­ing. Routledge.
Ben­jamin, W. (1969). The Sto­ry­teller. In Illu­mi­na­tions: Essays and Reflec­tions, ed.
Han­nah Arendt, trans. Har­ry Zohn. New York: Schocken.
Chatzi­dakis, A., Hakim, J., Lit­ter, J., Rot­ten­berg, C., & Care Col­lec­tive. (2020). The care man­i­festo: The pol­i­tics of inter­de­pen­dence. Ver­so Books.
Corn­wall, A. (2007). Buzz­words and fuzz­words: decon­struct­ing devel­op­ment dis­course. Devel­op­ment in Prac­tice, 17(4–5), 471–484. https://doi.org/10.1080/09614520701469302
Cook, J., & Trun­dle, C. (2020). Unset­tled care: Tem­po­ral­i­ty, sub­jec­tiv­i­ty, and the uneasy ethics of care. Anthro­pol­o­gy and Human­ism, 45(2), 178–183.
Cruik­shank, J. (2000). The social life of sto­ries: Nar­ra­tive and knowl­edge in the Yukon Ter­ri­to­ry. UBC Press.
McGrana­han, C. (2010). Nar­ra­tive dis­pos­ses­sion: Tibet and the gen­dered log­ics of his­tor­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ty. Com­par­a­tive Stud­ies in Soci­ety and His­to­ry, 52(4), 768–797.
Mol, A. (2008) The Log­ic of Care: Health and the Prob­lem of Patient Choice. Lon­don, UK: Routledge.
Mul­li­gan, J. (2014) Unman­age­able Care: An Ethnog­ra­phy of Health Care Pri­va­ti­za­tion in Puer­to Rico. New York: New York Uni­ver­si­ty Press.
Park, J., and R. P. Fitzger­ald (2011) Biotech­nolo­gies of Care. In Blackwell’s Com­pan­ion to Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, edit­ed by Mer­rill Singer, and Pamela Erick­son, pp. 425–442. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Phillips, T., Araújo, N., Jones, T. W., & Tay­lor, J. (2024). Inter­ro­gat­ing ‘well­be­ing’ through a nar­ra­tive frame. In Nar­ra­tives of well­be­ing (pp. 1–15). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Roberts. M. K. (2024) Care as sur­vival and resis­tance for pre­car­i­ous lives. Fem­i­nist Anthro­pol­o­gy 5: 284–292
Seo, B. K. (2020) Elic­it­ing Care: Health and Pow­er in North­ern Thai­land. Madi­son: Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin Press.

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