Panel

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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Call for papers for a pan­el at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Con­fer­ence 2026: „Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies as method: new inter­sec­tions and glob­al outlooks”
Con­fer­ence Theme: Nav­i­gat­ing the Chang­ing Land­scape of Disability/Studies
https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/conference/
Pro­posed Pan­el Title: Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies as method: new inter­sec­tions and glob­al outlooks.
Pan­el con­venors: Jhu­lia Dos San­tos, Dr Rosamund Grein­er, Dr Damarie Kalon­zo and Dr Lau­ren Avery.

Abstract

Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies (CDS) is a diverse and capa­cious area of the­o­ry and analy­sis that draws con­nec­tions with many oth­er bod­ies of social the­o­ry (crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, inter­sec­tion­al fem­i­nism, queer the­o­ry, decolo­nial and post colo­nial the­o­ry to name a few). CDS schol­ars have recent­ly called for broad­en­ing the use of dis­abil­i­ty as an ana­lyt­i­cal cat­e­go­ry to say some­thing wider about the world. Schalk and Kim (2020, p.37–38) pro­mote ‚employ­ing dis­abil­i­ty stud­ies as a lens to ana­lyze the inter­sect­ing sys­tems of ableism, het­eropa­tri­archy, white suprema­cy, and cap­i­tal­ist vio­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly as they assign val­ue or lack there­of to cer­tain body­minds.’ Sim­i­lar­ly, Good­ley (2016) sug­gests that ‘dis­abil­i­ty is the space from which to think through a host of polit­i­cal, the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal issues that are rel­e­vant to all’. 

Schalk renewed her call for using CDS as a method­ol­o­gy in her address to the PGR cohort at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Con­fer­ence 2024 con­fer­ence. Rather than lim­it­ing the field to those who iden­ti­fy as dis­abled, CDS can be used as a lens to explore multiple/ inter­sect­ing exclu­sions (Schalk, 2017). We ask there­fore, what can CDS tell us about those who have been polit­i­cal­ly exclud­ed from the cat­e­go­ry of ‘dis­abled’, either through being con­struct­ed as com­pul­so­ri­ly able­bod­ied (such as par­ents, care­givers, and health­care providers) or inher­ent­ly deviant or defi­cient (for exam­ple, racialised and colonised peo­ple, immi­grants and refugees, house­less peo­ple) by neolib­er­al gov­ern­ments, colo­nial regimes, or devel­op­men­tal­ist agen­cies and INGOs.

Tak­ing CDS per­spec­tives on dis­abil­i­ty case stud­ies as a start­ing point, this sym­po­sium will explore what CDS can show about broad­er social struc­tures that inter­con­nect with ableism. This sym­po­sium aims to car­ry on the Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies tra­di­tion using dis­abil­i­ty as a space from which to think, organ­ise, write and col­lab­o­rate. We invite sub­mis­sions from ear­ly career researchers (includ­ing PGRs) employ­ing CDS in their work in any field or dis­ci­pline, and par­tic­u­lar­ly those under-rep­re­sent­ed in dis­abil­i­ty dis­course. We also wel­come inter­est in col­lab­o­rat­ing towards a Spe­cial Issue on this theme as a result of this symposium.

Sub­mis­sions: Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to rosamund.greiner@ucl.ac.uk by 4th November. 

About us: We are a wel­com­ing group of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Post­grad­u­ate and Ear­ly Career researchers who employ Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies with­in our research and advo­ca­cy work. 

Ref­er­ences

-Good­ley, D. 2016. Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies: An Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Intro­duc­tion. 2nd ed. Lon­don: Sage., Pp. 157.
‑Schalk, S, Kim, J. 2020. Inte­grat­ing race, trans­form­ing fem­i­nist dis­abil­i­ty stud­ies. Signs. 46(1). Pp. 31–55.
‑Schalk, S. 2017. Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies as Method­ol­o­gy. Lat­er­al. 6(1). Pp. 1–4.

Call for papers (PDF): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ky532xUneamiXVjvI91qWbxSQ7MQT4Pe/view?usp=sharing

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