Ethnographies of expert knowledges in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability
Panel
CfP for a Conference on Ethnography and Qualitative Research in Trento (Italy)
CfP „Ethnographies of expert knowledges in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability”
10th International Conference on Ethnography and Qualitative Research Trento, Italy
July 10 to 12, 2025
Deadline: 20 January
„Ethnographies of expert knowledges in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability”
Nowadays, there has been a «discursive explosion» surrounding mental health, disability, and neurodivergence resulting in a wide array of heterogeneous narratives and representations in public and academic debates. Particularly on digital platforms, we witness a rise in content focused on «positivity» and the reversal of stigma. These can certainly be seen as an incursion into the political sphere by mad/crip activism; however, it is important to recognize how (part of) these discourses could be absorbed into a neoliberal framework. In a context of performative and extractivist logic, mad/crip/neurodivergent positivity risks becoming yet another tool that decrees the «salvation» of those with the resources to fit into the framework of «diversity» valorisation, while leading to processes of «monstrification» towards those who deviate from this construction of subjectivity.
Central in operating this differentiation is the role of expert knowledge. Although mental health, disability, and neurodivergence remain still framed within a predominantly biomedical paradigm, a range of technical figures are intervening in the construction of categories and the «take charge of users». An archipelago of expert knowledges – social workers, legal actors, tutors, educational services, (former) patients who take on roles as «expert users», NGO volunteers – thus intervene in identity and relational constructions, defining life trajectories, producing spaces and services that inherently navigate the constitutive ambiguity between care and control, treatment and neglect. Among these are the social sciences, both in their production of knowledge and in providing tools for social care practices. They contribute to defining, identifying, classifying, and quantifying the users, positioning them within the grids of «deserving/appropriate» vs «irrecoverable» patient, «rehabilitable» vs excluded.
The current configuration, resulting from the dismantling of national social protection systems in the wake of austerity policies and the shift of responsibility to the private sector, represents only the latest phase in a long-standing process of differential inclusion and exclusion, deeply embedded in the very structure of social welfare and the State itself.
Ethnographic practice highlights power structures, fostering critical reflection on the role of social work and expert knowledges. This approach challenges established institutions and models while also situating the processes surrounding care and treatment within relationships, contexts, and everyday tactics.
We invite contributions that address mental health, disability, and neurodivergence, within and beyond the care/control binary. We ask what is the role of «expert knowledges» – considered in their singularity or intersections – in the construction of subjectivities, in the production of vulnerability, and in the processes of distinction and fragmentation of the user base; and how practices of subtraction or resistance to such devices configure.
Open questions
– What processes shape the construction of meaning around the categories of vulnerability and fragility (across disability, neurodivergence, and mental health), and how do these categories influence social work in taking charge and managing users?
– How can an ethnographic critique of concepts such as paternalism and pietism in social welfare be framed, starting from practices of care, control, neglect, and treatment?
– How do practices of distinction within social services (broadly defined) emerge between the «deserving» user and the «problematic» user, and how do these distinctions—simultaneously practical, organizational, and moral—affect the balance between care and control?
– How does the relationship between families, public services, and caregivers configure the everyday dynamics of care and control within a context of poly-crisis and dismantling the welfare state? How do the «third sector», humanitarian organizations, and volunteering intersect
in this relationship?
– How do mad/crip/neurodivergent subjectivation processes unfold, both within and beyond medicalization and the framing of service users?
– What impact do social inequalities—based on structural axes of class, race, gender, sexualities, and others—have on the rationale of social services? How do these processes influence street-level bureaucracy practices, and how do they shape subjectivation within these systems?
– What forms of withdrawal and detachment from the controlling dimensions of social and clinical work exist, and what possibilities do they open up?
– What are the processes of spatialization of disability/neurodivergence/mental health, and how do they relate to social and clinical work? What are the geographies of these processes, and what do they add to our understanding?
Ethnographies of expert knowledges in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability
Panel
CfP for an international conference
Call for papers for „Ethnographies of expert knowledges in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability”
10th International Conference on Ethnography and Qualitative Research
July 10 to 12, 2025
Deadline January 25th
33. Ethnographies of expert knowledges in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability.
Nowadays, there has been a «discursive explosion» surrounding mental health, disability, and neurodivergence resulting in a wide array of heterogeneous narratives and representations in public and academic debates. Particularly on digital platforms, we witness a rise in content focused on «positivity» and the reversal of stigma. These can certainly be seen as an incursion into the political sphere by mad/crip activism; however, it is important to recognize how (part of) these discourses could be absorbed into a neoliberal framework. In a context of performative and extractivist logic, mad/crip/neurodivergent positivity risks becoming yet another tool that decrees the «salvation» of those with the resources to fit into the framework of «diversity» valorisation, while leading to processes of «monstrification» towards those who deviate from this construction of subjectivity.
Central in operating this differentiation is the role of expert knowledge. Although mental health, disability, and neurodivergence remain still framed within a predominantly biomedical paradigm, a range of technical figures are intervening in the construction of categories and the «take charge of users». An archipelago of expert knowledges – social workers, legal actors, tutors, educational services, (former) patients who take on roles as «expert users», NGO volunteers – thus intervene in identity and relational constructions, defining life trajectories, producing spaces and services that inherently navigate the constitutive ambiguity between care and control, treatment and neglect. Among these are the social sciences, both in their production of knowledge and in providing tools for social care practices. They contribute to defining, identifying, classifying, and quantifying the users, positioning them within the grids of «deserving/appropriate» vs «irrecoverable» patient, «rehabilitable» vs excluded.
The current configuration, resulting from the dismantling of national social protection systems in the wake of austerity policies and the shift of responsibility to the private sector, represents only the latest phase in a long-standing process of differential inclusion and exclusion, deeply embedded in the very structure of social welfare and the State itself.
Ethnographic practice highlights power structures, fostering critical reflection on the role of social work and expert knowledges. This approach challenges established institutions and models while also situating the processes surrounding care and treatment within relationships, contexts, and everyday tactics.
We invite contributions that address mental health, disability, and neurodivergence, within and beyond the care/control binary. We ask what is the role of «expert knowledges» – considered in their singularity or intersections – in the construction of subjectivities, in the production of vulnerability, and in the processes of distinction and fragmentation of the user base; and how practices of subtraction or resistance to such devices configure.
Open questions
What processes shape the construction of meaning around the categories of vulnerability and fragility (across disability, neurodivergence, and mental health), and how do these categories influence social work in taking charge and managing users?
How can an ethnographic critique of concepts such as paternalism and pietism in social welfare be framed, starting from practices of care, control, neglect, and treatment?
How do practices of distinction within social services (broadly defined) emerge between the «deserving» user and the «problematic» user, and how do these distinctions—simultaneously practical, organizational, and moral—affect the balance between care and control?
How does the relationship between families, public services, and caregivers configure the everyday dynamics of care and control within a context of poly-crisis and dismantling the welfare state? How do the «third sector», humanitarian organizations, and volunteering intersect in this relationship?
How do mad/crip/neurodivergent subjectivation processes unfold, both within and beyond medicalization and the framing of service users?
What impact do social inequalities—based on structural axes of class, race, gender, sexualities, and others—have on the rationale of social services? How do these processes influence street-level bureaucracy practices, and how do they shape subjectivation within these systems?
What forms of withdrawal and detachment from the controlling dimensions of social and clinical work exist, and what possibilities do they open up?
What are the processes of spatialization of disability/neurodivergence/mental health, and how do they relate to social and clinical work? What are the geographies of these processes, and what do they add to our understanding?
For any issues, don’t hesitate to contact the convenors at fabio.bertoni@ics.ulisboa.pt and luca.sterchele@unito.it.
Towards new alternatives in social care: Transitions in the domestic, institutional and community care scenarios
Panel
CfP for the 9th APA (Associação Portuguesa de Antropologia)
in-person panel P100 – Towards new alternatives in social care: Transitions in the domestic, institutional and community care scenarios
9th APA (Associação Portuguesa de Antropologia)
Castelo (Portugal)
14 to 18 July 2025
Abstracts are due by January 13, 2025
https://apa2025.eventqualia.net/pt/inicio/painéis/chamada-comunicações/
We invite submissions of papers in both Spanish and English that provide new insights on this topic.
Abstract:
Care practices have significant relations to people’s existence and social reproduction. Caregiving involves a complex interaction between stakeholders in various scenarios (domestic, institutional, and community-based). Indeed, care is provided through a changing constellation of resources across families, the State, the market and civil society, all of which comprise the institutional structure of social care. Similarly, care is structured not only by gender but also by age, class, and ethnic/national origin. The traditional care options have been between domestic care and residential facilities. Institutionalization in a residential care home is an option that is usually reserved for worsening situations of dependence. Ageing in one’s own home is an aspiration, but this often takes place in housing and neighborhoods that are not adapted to the needs of the ageing, accelerating their vulnerable processes. In addition, territorial disparities (urban-rural areas) also account for inequalities in the access of care.
Our panel is oriented towards identifying the elements that can give rise to alternative formulas for social care, which make it possible to shift the central role played by families and women, favoring the dignification of paid and unpaid care. To understand the experiences in new care environments that try to foster new forms of articulation between social agents and their care surroundings (cohousing, care ecosystems, communities, etc.). We are interested in contributions that, based on ethnographic work and theoretical reflection, analyze innovative formulas in the articulation of long-term care providers, identifying their scope and limitations when subverting territorial, social and gender inequalities.
Towards new alternatives in social care: Transitions in the domestic, institutional and community care scenarios
Panel
CfP for Panel at 9th APA, Viana do Castelo (Portugal)
CfP for panel on the topic „Towards new alternatives in social care: Transitions in the domestic, institutional and community care scenarios”
9th APA – Associação Portuguesa de Antropologia
Viana do Castelo (Portugal)
14–18 July, 2025
Deadline 13 January 2025: https://apa2025.eventqualia.net/pt/inicio/painéis/chamada-comunicações/
We invite submissions of papers in both Spanish and English that provide new insights on this topic.
Abstract:
Care practices have significant relations to people’s existence and social reproduction. Caregiving involves a complex interaction between stakeholders in various scenarios (domestic, institutional, and community-based). Indeed, care is provided through a changing constellation of resources across families, the State, the market and civil society, all of which comprise the institutional structure of social care. Similarly, care is structured not only by gender but also by age, class, and ethnic/national origin. The traditional care options have been between domestic care and residential facilities. Institutionalization in a residential care home is an option that is usually reserved for worsening situations of dependence. Ageing in one’s own home is an aspiration, but this often takes place in housing and neighborhoods that are not adapted to the needs of the ageing, accelerating their vulnerable processes. In addition, territorial disparities (urban-rural areas) also account for inequalities in the access of care.
Our panel is oriented towards identifying the elements that can give rise to alternative formulas for social care, which make it possible to shift the central role played by families and women, favoring the dignification of paid and unpaid care. To understand the experiences in new care environments that try to foster new forms of articulation between social agents and their care surroundings (cohousing, care ecosystems, communities, etc.). We are interested in contributions that, based on ethnographic work and theoretical reflection, analyze innovative formulas in the articulation of long-term care providers, identifying their scope and limitations when subverting territorial, social and gender inequalities.
Data, Care and Learning in Datafied Worlds
Panel
CfP for a hybrid conference
CfP for a panel on “Data, Care and Learning in Datafied Worlds”
4S conference in Seattle and online
3–7 September 2025
The extended deadline for abstract submissions is 2 February 2025. Please see below for more information and get in touch with any questions. Abstracts can be submitted here.
Short Abstract:
How do data, care, and learning shape each other? Bringing together empirical work and theoretical considerations across disciplines and contexts, this panel aims to think broadly about the practices that make up the dynamic data-care-learning nexus and the important questions they raise for STS.
Long Abstract:
In an era of digital transformation, how do data, care and learning practices mutually define each other?
As socially-situated and theory-laden phenomena, data practices are subject to operations of scaling and manipulation, underpinned by systems of logic and value, and co-produced with cultural, political, and socioeconomic realities. Data are a principal medium through which we come to learn, care, and know about our worlds.
Feminist STS has established the critical importance of care for sustaining our worlds, directing attention toward who cares, about what, and how. Continuing to critically theorize and empirically investigate care opens up questions of maintenance, vulnerability and interdependence. Tracing data practices with care in mind is likely to extend some of these insights and contest others.
Learning is theorised differently across fields from STS and Innovation Studies to Psychology and Education. Fundamental questions about the nature of learning underpin assumptions about knowledge, expertise, and pedagogy. What we care to learn about and how we learn to care have implications for our understanding of data practices since those practices both shape what can be learned and must themselves be learned.
Organised by the DARE team, this panel seeks to build on and contribute to these literatures by bringing together work across data technologies, contexts of use, intellectual fields, and communities of practice to examine the data-care-learning nexus.
Submissions might offer insights into, for example:
– What data, care, and learning come to mean through their mutual entanglement
– Where processes of learning and caring are located in data practices
– Distinguishing between caring, learning, and knowing in relation to data practices
– How data are cared for, and how data enable or constrain care
– What and how we learn through data practices
– How the nexus of data, care and learning are theorised across different sites, and with different publics
Neuromedical Configurations: Thinking Through Possibilities of Care, Neglect, and Solidarity
Panel
In Person Panel at 4S Seattle conference
“Neuromedical Configurations: Thinking Through Possibilities of Care, Neglect, and Solidarity”
4S Seattle conference
September 3–7, 2025
Seattle, Washington, USA
Submission deadline is *31 January 2025*.
Abstracts can be submitted using this link: https://www.4sonline.org/call_for_submissions_seattle.php (Panel number 24).
Neuromedical Configurations: Thinking Through Possibilities of Care, Neglect, and Solidarity
Discussant:
Angela Marques Filipe, Durham University
Convenors:
Sebastian Rojas – Navarro, Andres Bello University, sebastian.rojas.n@unab.cl
Talia Fried, Ben Gurion University, frita@post.bgu.ac.il
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the ethico-political stakes, experiences and possibilities of neuromedical subjectivity. We welcome papers that explore pragmatic challenges and emancipatory potentials of neuromedical personhood, while theorizing with and beyond ‘care.’
Long Abstract:
Neuromedical knowledge and technologies are increasingly reshaping our understanding of human experience, fueling collective demands, transforming notions of personhood, and driving material, semiotic, and infrastructural changes across societies. While advancements in biomedical and psychological sciences have opened pathways for individual and collective action, healing, and support, these gains are unevenly distributed. Stigma, institutionalized indifference, and disparities in health resources persist globally, threatening to overshadow potential benefits. In this complex scenario, how does engaging with neuromedical advancements allow for the creation of diverse realities of care? How do forms of abandonment or solidarity shape the social spaces where health, illness, suffering, and disability are neuromedically configured?
This panel examines the ethico-political dimensions of neuromedical subjectivity by extending theories of care (Puig de la Bellacasa 2010). Building on studies of the relational, ethical, and political aspects of care, we invite researchers to explore frameworks that challenge and complement this notion, integrating STS perspectives on the (un)caring dimensions of neuromedical knowledge and practices with other critical lenses—such as “rights,” “solidarity,” “abandonment,” and “neglect” — and drawing insights from fields like medical sociology, disability studies, political philosophy, urban studies, posthumanism, critical neuroscience and others.
Presentations may address questions such as: How do care and neglect affect patient outcomes, identity formation, and experiences of social belonging within neuromedical contexts? How do neuromedical approaches shape practices and modes ofself-knowing, identity, and relationality across different social settings? How are the infrastructural, material, and semiotic aspects of our societies shifting—or not—to accommodate diverse neuromedical identities-in-the-making?
Please feel free to direct any questions to us at Talia Fried, frita@post.bgu.ac.il
Enacting Hope and Desire in Mental Healthcare: Discursive Practices and Therapeutic Implications
Panel
Conference organised by the Italian Society of Cultural Anthropology (SIAC) in Matera, Italy
CfP for Panel: “Enacting Hope and Desire in Mental Healthcare: Discursive Practices and Therapeutic Implications”
Fifth SIAC National Conference “HOPE / DESPAIR / DESIRE” organised by the Italian Society of Cultural Anthropology (SIAC) in the stunning city of Matera, 25–27 September 2025.
Panel 14 / SIAC 2025 • SIAC Società italiana di antropologia culturale
Panel Convenors:
Giulia Sciolli, Italian National Research Council (CNR)
Roberta Martina Zagarella , Italian National Research Council (CNR)
Abstract:
The role of hope and desire for life as “practiced” in therapeutic settings, as factors shaping treatment even in situations that seem to only allow for despair, has been widely explored for conditions like cancer and chronic disabilities (e.g. Mattingly 1998, 2010). This anthropological literature has shown that hope and desire are continuously constructed and fostered through the discourses and practices of professional and family carers. Less attention has been given to mental health settings, where despair is often perceived more as part of the condition being treated and, gradually, of the very person who suffers, than as a consequence of an ‘external’ disease. What Mattingly (2010: 5) calls “a paradoxical border practice” (hope for a life beyond or notwithstanding illness) is therefore even more paradoxical in mental healthcare, especially for conditions deemed chronic. And yet hope has been found to characterise recovery narratives, therapeutic relationships and treatment engagement (Longhofer and Floersch 2010; Murphy et al. 2024; Van Dongen 1998). This panel welcomes submissions that, based on ethnographic research conducted among patients, healthcare professionals and/or family carers in specific strands of mental healthcare, show how the discursive constructions and enactments of hope and desire for life function as therapeutic tools or as points of tension in care, illuminating their transformative potential but also their limitations and ethical complexities.
Keywords: hope, desire, mental healthcare, discourse, practice
We welcome contributions in Italian and/or English 🙂
To submit a contribution, please send an email to: giulia.sciolli@cnr.it and robertamartina.zagarella@cnr.it by June 2, 2025 attaching a Word document containing:
Name of author(s)
Affiliation
Panel number and title
Paper title
Abstract (1500 characters max)
The panel will host a maximum of eight papers organised in two sessions, which will last 1 hour and 45 minutes each to allow enough time for questions and discussion.
Authors will be notified of acceptance/rejection/possible relocation of submitted proposals by June 16, and the full programme of the conference will be available July 15.
N.B. SIAC believes in sharing knowledge and in maintaining an inclusive scientific community. SIAC Conferences are open and free for both speakers and the public. No registration or membership fee is required to attend.
More info on the general conference theme can be found here (see second half of the page for English description): SPERARE / DISPERARE / DESIDERARE • SIAC Società italiana di antropologia culturale
For further logistical information on the conference you can email: convegno.siac.2025@gmail.com
We look forward to receiving your abstracts!
Giulia Sciolli and Roberta Martina Zagarella
“Shifting states and their histories in institutional care”
Panel
Hybrid Lecture
CfP for a panel on “Shifting states and their histories in institutional care”
Anthrostate conference “Shifting States”
22–24 October, 2025
Amsterdam, Netherlands
✨No registration fee, in-person only. (EASA network on Anthropologies of the State conference)
If the panel abstract below resonates with your research and you would like to join a bunch of friendly people, please send your abstract to Kristine Krause k.krause@uva.nl
The final panel including abstracts need to be submitted 11 April, so we would like have your abstract the latest 9th April.
Junior and PhD researchers particularly welcome.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Shifting states and their histories in institutional care
The anthropology of the state has long argued that states do not exist as coherent units out there but are articulated in practices, spaces and effects. One of the key spaces in which states have effects on their citizens are care institutions. They respond to crucial needs of humans; for instance as places where sicknesses are treated and frail bodies are taken care of. They can also curate major transitions such as birth and death. Care institutions such as hospitals or nursing homes are places defined by particular and persistent forms of interaction. These forms – where and how things are done, when and by whom – have often coagulated over time. They are backed up by legitimations which are not easy to question, because they are part of other non-tangible societal institutions, such as gendered division of labour, kinship and family ideologies which are specific to historically grown care and health regimes. These regimes as part of state governance can bear traces of pasts such as colonial rule, political regimes shifts or specific biopolitical projects of care and control. Institutional care can also be provided by non-state actors on behalf of the state including non-profit, religious or charity organisations but also commercial or even corporatized actors. The reasons why these actors perform or have taken over these tasks, have again their own histories often related to shifts in ways of governance of welfare state regimes.
This panel brings together papers that explore how shifting states and their histories come back resurface, or take unexpected forms within the spaces and practices of institutional care. The papers examine how historical legacies shape and haunt caregiving interactions, institutional routines, and the narratives and positionalities of those involved in these care settings. In asking how these pasts are articulated, linger on or are represented in care institutions this panel understands history not as something waiting to be discovered in the background, but as actively brought up, mobilized and presented in the field or articulated by the ethnographer. The past then becomes “history” through practices of actors in the field or through the analytical work of the ethnographer who identifies history as an absent presence in the studied situation or practice. The paper in this panel interrogate the constitutive moments where history appears, or is brought up in institutional care settings, asking, which positionings, generational memories and narratives become articulated therein.
Organized by the ReloCare Team & friends from the University of Amsterdam
(Mariusz Sapieha, Matouš Jelínek, Veronika Prieler, Shahana Siddiqui , Yuan Yan and Kristine Krause)
The Burden of Responsibility? Ethics, Power and Practice in Care Settings
Panel
Hybrid congress
CfP for panel ‚The Burden of Responsibility? Ethics, Power and Practice in Care Settings’
World Anthropological Union (WAU) 2025 Congress
November in Antigua, Guatemala
The Congress allows both online and face-to-face participation and we would love to receive your proposals
Deadline for submission is May 3rd, 2025. More information about submission here: Here you can find information about submission: https://www.waucongress2025.org/call-for-papers/
The Burden of Responsibility? Ethics, Power, and Practice in Care Settings
Abstract
Medical anthropologists have long interrogated the meanings and practices of care, from intimate forms of caregiving to institutional systems that administer and withhold care (Kleinman 1997; Mol 2008). Likewise, responsibility within health settings has been examined in terms of blame, accountability, and moral obligation (Farmer 2004; Fassin 2012; Demian, Fumanti, Lynteris 2023). However, we think that the intersection of theories of care and of responsibility could benefit from further exploration. We begin by asking: What do we mean when we speak of responsibility in contexts of care? We encourage contributors to critically reflect on the specificities that the term ‚responsibility’ assumes in care settings compared to other contexts, as well as on the ambiguities and difficulties involved in defining what responsibility consists of in such settings. How are practices of care entangled with responsibilities, both assumed and imposed? How do individuals and institutions negotiate the burden of care, and who is deemed responsible when care falls short or results in harm? What happens when responsibility is fragmented or resisted, and how are these processes shaped by power relations, gendered expectations, and neoliberal policies?
This panel seeks contributions that investigate the intersections of care and responsibility in health contexts globally. We invite paper proposals focusing on the intricate and often contested relationship between care and responsibility within (but not limited to) health and healing practices. In an era marked by increasingly complex health systems, structural inequalities, and global crises, the ethics and politics of care have taken on renewed significance. At the same time, notions of responsibility are being redefined, distributed, and resisted across multiple actors, including patients, families, healthcare professionals, communities, and states
We encourage submissions that critically examine the ways in which care is both an ethical practice and a site of power, and how responsibility is ascribed, internalized, or contested in different medical and socio-political landscapes.
We welcome papers engaging with, but not limited to, the following themes:
- Moral economies of care and the distribution of responsibility (Mol 2008; Han 2012);
‑Care work and the burdens of responsibility within families and communities (Ticktin 2011; Thelen 2015);
‑Intersections between care, responsibility and gendered expectations (Glenn 2012);
‑Institutional care practices and systemic failures in assuming responsibility (Garcia 2010; Livingston 2012);
‑The impact of neoliberal reforms and policies on shaping responsibilities (Muehlebach 2012);
– Health policies and the delegation of responsibility to patients and caregivers (Biehl 2013);
– Indigenous, feminist, and decolonial perspectives on care and responsibility (Briggs and Mantini-Briggs 2003; Puig de la Bellacasa 2017);
– The role of the state in care provision and the politics of neglect (Das 2015; Redfield 2013);
– Global health interventions and transnational responsibilities (Nguyen 2010; Adams 2016).
More info at https://www.waucongress2025.org/panel/?id=892
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