Panel

CfP for the pan­el “Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”
STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2025 “Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies“
May 5 to 7, 2025 and on Zoom

Con­venors:
Erik Aar­den (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)

The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025

Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies (STS) and relat­ed fields, such as Med­ical Soci­ol­o­gy, Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Health Pol­i­cy Analy­sis, and Bioethics, have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of “test­ing in bio­med­i­cine.” Much of this work has focused on spe­cif­ic types of tests or their uses in dis­tinct set­tings. For instance, begin­ning in the late 1980s, schol­ars have stud­ied genet­ic test­ing as it was envi­sioned, devel­oped, and used in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, or recre­ation­al prac­tices, or com­pared the moral­i­ties of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works sus­tain­ing and lim­it­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to a soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing in clin­i­cal prac­tices is involved in “mak­ing up peo­ple” (Hack­ing, 2002). More recent­ly, research has addressed the devel­op­ment, use, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies of test­ing and the author­i­ties involved in their gov­er­nance. Last but not least, emerg­ing bod­ies of schol­ar­ship have explored the role of test­ing as a gov­ern­ing tool in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and pan­dem­ic man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in response to COVID-19.

In this pan­el, we aim to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open up a con­ver­sa­tion between these dif­fer­ent areas of research. Build­ing on work per­formed under the label of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we pro­pose the label of “social stud­ies of (bio­med­ical) test­ing” or “bio­med­ical test­ing stud­ies” to encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engagements.

We invite both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the envi­sion­ing, devel­op­ment, use, eval­u­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing across diverse bio­med­ical domains. These may include but are not lim­it­ed to: test­ing prac­tices in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health or social ser­vice set­tings; DIY-test­ing; and eco­nom­ic, legal, moral, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of test­ing as well as the absences or non-use of tests.

Con­fer­ence Page: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://www.conftool.com/sts-conference-graz-2025/
Call Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:5f98cc92-aa88-4cd7-a930-ceff51ffc631
List of Pan­els: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/

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CfP to the pan­el “Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing”
23rd Annu­al STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2025: “Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies.“
May 5 to 7, 2025
Graz (Aus­tria), online hybrid

The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025.

„Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”

Short Abstract:

This pan­el seeks to engage schol­ars in a con­ver­sa­tion on test­ing in bio­med­i­cine. We wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that explore the devel­op­ment, uses, reg­u­la­tion, and gov­er­nance of var­i­ous bio­med­ical tests across clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, and recre­ation­al contexts.

Con­fer­ence Page: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://www.conftool.com/sts-conference-graz-2025/
Call Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:5f98cc92-aa88-4cd7-a930-ceff51ffc631
List of Pan­els: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/

Con­venors:

Erik Aar­den (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)

Long Abstract:

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies (STS) and relat­ed fields, such as Med­ical Soci­ol­o­gy, Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Health Pol­i­cy Analy­sis, and Bioethics, have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of “test­ing in bio­med­i­cine.” Much of this work has focused on spe­cif­ic types of tests or their uses in dis­tinct set­tings. For instance, begin­ning in the late 1980s, schol­ars have stud­ied genet­ic test­ing as it was envi­sioned, devel­oped, and used in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, or recre­ation­al prac­tices, or com­pared the moral­i­ties of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works sus­tain­ing and lim­it­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to a soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing in clin­i­cal prac­tices is involved in “mak­ing up peo­ple” (Hack­ing, 2002). More recent­ly, research has addressed the devel­op­ment, use, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies of test­ing and the author­i­ties involved in their gov­er­nance. Last but not least, emerg­ing bod­ies of schol­ar­ship have explored the role of test­ing as a gov­ern­ing tool in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and pan­dem­ic man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in response to COVID-19.

In this pan­el, we aim to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open up a con­ver­sa­tion between these dif­fer­ent areas of research. Build­ing on work per­formed under the label of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we pro­pose the label of “social stud­ies of (bio­med­ical) test­ing” or “bio­med­ical test­ing stud­ies” to encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engagements.

We invite both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the envi­sion­ing, devel­op­ment, use, eval­u­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing across diverse bio­med­ical domains. These may include but are not lim­it­ed to: test­ing prac­tices in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health or social ser­vice set­tings; DIY-test­ing; and eco­nom­ic, legal, moral, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of test­ing as well as the absences or non-use of tests.

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CfP for a Pan­el on “Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”
23rd Annu­al STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2025, “Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies“
May 5 to 7, 2025. The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025

Con­venors:

Erik Aar­den (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)

“Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies (STS) and relat­ed fields, such as Med­ical Soci­ol­o­gy, Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Health Pol­i­cy Analy­sis, and Bioethics, have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of “test­ing in bio­med­i­cine.” Much of this work has focused on spe­cif­ic types of tests or their uses in dis­tinct set­tings. For instance, begin­ning in the late 1980s, schol­ars have stud­ied genet­ic test­ing as it was envi­sioned, devel­oped, and used in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, or recre­ation­al prac­tices, or com­pared the moral­i­ties of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works sus­tain­ing and lim­it­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to a soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing in clin­i­cal prac­tices is involved in “mak­ing up peo­ple” (Hack­ing, 2002). More recent­ly, research has addressed the devel­op­ment, use, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies of test­ing and the author­i­ties involved in their gov­er­nance. Last but not least, emerg­ing bod­ies of schol­ar­ship have explored the role of test­ing as a gov­ern­ing tool in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and pan­dem­ic man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in response to COVID-19.

In this pan­el, we aim to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open up a con­ver­sa­tion between these dif­fer­ent areas of research. Build­ing on work per­formed under the label of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we pro­pose the label of “social stud­ies of (bio­med­ical) test­ing” or “bio­med­ical test­ing stud­ies” to encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engagements.

We invite both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the envi­sion­ing, devel­op­ment, use, eval­u­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing across diverse bio­med­ical domains. These may include, but are not lim­it­ed to: test­ing prac­tices in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health or social ser­vice set­tings; DIY-test­ing; and eco­nom­ic, legal, moral, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of test­ing as well as the absences or non-use of tests.

For more infor­ma­tion and to apply visit:

Con­fer­ence Page: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://www.conftool.com/sts-conference-graz-2025/
Call Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:5f98cc92-aa88-4cd7-a930-ceff51ffc631

List of Pan­els: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/

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CfP pan­el „At the bor­ders of bio­med­i­cine: how health and care are recon­fig­ured as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise”
10th STS Italia Con­fer­ence “Techno­science for Good: Design­ing, Car­ing, and Reconfiguring”
Politec­ni­co di Milano, Milan, Italy
11–13 June 2025

Fol­low this link: https://stsitalia.org/submission-2025/ and sub­mit a title, an abstract of up to 500 words, and key­words by 3 Feb­ru­ary 2025 (this dead­line will NOT be extended). 

At the bor­ders of bio­med­i­cine: how health and care are recon­fig­ured as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise

In con­tem­po­rary soci­eties, neolib­er­al eco­nom­ic arrange­ments and the rise of con­sumerism have sig­nif­i­cant­ly reshaped cul­tur­al expec­ta­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the body, fram­ing health as a high­ly indi­vid­u­al­ized and moral­ly charged respon­si­bil­i­ty. Indi­vid­u­als are expect­ed to seek knowl­edge, exer­cise moral judg­ment, par­tic­i­pate in health­care deci­sions, and min­i­mize health risks through per­son­al choic­es. This empha­sis on per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty is reflect­ed not only in pub­lic health dis­cours­es but also in knowl­edge domains that sit at the epis­temic bound­aries of bio­med­i­cine. Con­se­quent­ly, it is impor­tant to explore how these new pub­lic health dis­cours­es have cre­at­ed space for alter­na­tive practices—such as med­i­ta­tion, nutri­tion­al ther­a­pies, dance ther­a­py, and heal­ing meth­ods drawn from natur­opa­thy and homeopathy—to enter the health­care are­na. These prac­tices are sup­port­ed by an increased empha­sis on indi­vid­ual choice, ther­a­peu­tic plu­ral­ism, and asso­ci­at­ed fund­ing packages. 

Approach­es that encom­pass health and well­ness prac­tices that lie out­side and are not accept­ed with­in bio­med­i­cine, oth­er­wise labeled as “refused knowl­edge”, do not sim­ply reflect an alleged oppo­si­tion to bio­med­ical advice stem­ming from health illit­er­a­cy or dis­trust of med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. Instead, they sig­ni­fy a demand from cit­i­zens, con­sumers, and patient advo­ca­cy groups to become more informed and account­able in their rela­tion­ship with bio­med­i­cine. This trend involves “open­ing the black box” of bio­med­i­cine, crit­i­cal­ly assess­ing its inner work­ings. Fur­ther research is need­ed to explore how alter­na­tive knowl­edge sys­tems chal­lenge bio­med­ical bound­aries and con­tribute to shap­ing con­tem­po­rary under­stand­ings of health and care. 

This pan­el aims to bring togeth­er mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary STS research to deep­en our under­stand­ing of the social and epis­temic con­di­tions under which health and care are dis­cur­sive­ly and mate­ri­al­ly enact­ed as “do-able prob­lems” at the mar­gins of bio­med­ical sci­ence. It seeks to ana­lyze the extent to which such enact­ment may reduce indi­vid­u­als’ reliance on pre­vail­ing med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers by pro­mot­ing activ­i­ties such as self-care, health enhance­ment, chron­ic dis­ease man­age­ment, and the acqui­si­tion of diag­nos­tic and ther­a­peu­tic skills, there­by increas­ing­ly shift­ing med­ical exper­tise and respon­si­bil­i­ty to the individual.

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit the­o­ret­i­cal, empir­i­cal, and/or method­olog­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that explore how forms of health and care emerg­ing at the bound­aries of sci­ence reshape bio­med­ical author­i­ty while becom­ing entan­gled in con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics of life. 

We espe­cial­ly encour­age a focus on the inter­sec­tion of knowl­edge-mak­ing prac­tices and indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion process­es, and how these process­es are enact­ed in rela­tion to bod­i­ly expe­ri­ences, health, and care man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to the empha­sis on per­son­al and moral respon­si­bil­i­ty for health. 

Con­trib­u­tors may focus on the fol­low­ing dimensions: 

• Ana­lyze how health and care are prac­ticed at the bound­aries of bio­med­ical sciences. 

• Exam­ine clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tems, tech­ni­cal objects, ther­a­peu­tic prac­tices, care rela­tion­ships, self-exper­i­men­tal tech­niques, evi­dence pro­duc­tion, and pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies that either rein­force or chal­lenge the nar­ra­tives and nor­ma­tive stances fram­ing health as an indi­vid­u­al­ized moral respon­si­bil­i­ty and per­son­al duty. 

• Explore knowl­edge legit­imiza­tion strate­gies employed to frame health and care as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise. 

• Pro­vide method­olog­i­cal reflec­tions on the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a non-nor­ma­tive, sym­met­ri­cal per­spec­tive when study­ing health and care prac­tices beyond the bio­med­ical, while also con­sid­er­ing the researcher’s posi­tion­al­i­ty in the field.

If you have any ques­tions please email to stefano.crabu@unipd.it.

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CFP for a pan­el on „Car­ing for ‚care’: fem­i­nist STS per­spec­tives on research­ing robots and AI”
Chair: Dr. Ste­vi­en­na de Saille, Lec­tur­er in Sociology
10th STS Italia Con­fer­ence, tak­ing place in Milan
11 to 13 June

Dead­line for abstracts is 3 Feb 2025

You can find more infor­ma­tion here: https://stsitalia.org/conference-2025

Car­ing for “care”: fem­i­nist STS per­spec­tives on research­ing robots and
AI

In some lan­guages, such as Ital­ian, there is a dis­tinc­tion between
car­ing for/caring about (cura) and pro­vid­ing health or social care
(assis­ten­za). In oth­er lan­guages, par­tic­u­lar­ly Eng­lish, “care” can
become a catch-all encom­pas­ing the emo­tive, the trans­ac­tion­al and the
sys­temic. This semi­otic  slip­page, par­tic­u­lar­ly in dis­cus­sions about
emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies such as robots and AI, means that things which
can­not actu­al­ly care are increas­ing­ly tout­ed as the
solu­tion for “the cri­sis of care” for dis­abled and old­er peo­ple, ie.
those who advanced cap­i­tal­ist soci­eties tend to care the least about.

Begin­ning with the work of Tron­to and Bel­la­casa, this tra­di­tion­al open
pan­el asks how “care” becomes con­struct­ed, decon­struct­ed, entangled,
detan­gled, impli­cat­ed and alien­at­ed in these dis­cus­sions in different
lan­guages and dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al con­texts. It asks how those of us
doing empir­i­cal research on the use of robots and AI in care can
devel­op schol­ar­ship that uses fem­i­nist STS sen­si­bil­i­ties, paradigms
and prac­tices to inform our par­tic­i­pa­tion. How can the con­flu­ence of
the robot­ic, the human and the social be stud­ied with care, when
nei­ther the prob­lems, con­text, pur­pose nor users are well defined and
the lan­guage of “care” is not uni­ver­sal?  What oth­er forms of
knowl­edge pro­duc­tion could we uti­lize as an anti­dote to instrumental
engi­neer­ing imag­i­nar­ies, par­tic­u­lar­ly where these claim to be solving
the “prob­lem” of car­ing for soci­etal­ly vul­ner­a­ble groups? How do we as
STS schol­ars work against tech­noso­lu­tion­ism, and avoid being co-opted
into instru­men­tal imag­i­nar­ies when work­ing on interdisciplinary
projects? In oth­er words, how do we care for “care”?

This pan­el invites papers which dis­cuss these and sim­i­lar questions
about mobi­liz­ing STS sen­si­bil­i­ties to help trans­form and make visible
the care in care robot­ics, in ways which can shape
and influ­ence the tra­jec­to­ry of engi­neer­ing projects. We are
espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in qual­i­ta­tive empir­i­cal research that examines
the posi­tion­al­i­ty and reflex­iv­i­ty of STS schol­ars with regard to the
study of “robots/AI for care”, as well as those exam­in­ing the new and
exper­i­men­tal forms of nor­ma­tiv­i­ty and rela­tion­al­i­ty which are
begin­ning to arise around robots, AI and human engage­ment in this
field. Con­tri­bu­tions may include (but are not lim­it­ed to) those which
dis­cuss “care” as:

• an onto­log­i­cal object, an ontol­ogy, an object conflict;
• an epis­to­mol­o­gy;
• a verb, an action;
• an ethics, a pol­i­tics, a moral imper­a­tive, a nor­ma­tive orientation;
• a set of rela­tions, a system;
• a metaphor;
• a syn­onym for main­te­nance, respon­si­bil­i­ty, nurturance…
• or any oth­er way of approach­ing robots and AI in care as a top­ic for
  (fem­i­nist) STS.

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CfP for the pan­el „At the bor­ders of bio­med­i­cine: how health and care are recon­fig­ured as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise”
10th STS Italia Con­fer­ence “Techno­science for Good: Design­ing, Car­ing, and Reconfiguring”
Politec­ni­co di Milano, Milan, Italy
11–13 June 2025

Fol­low this link: https://stsitalia.org/submission-2025/ and sub­mit a title, an abstract of up to 500 words, and key­words by 3 Feb­ru­ary 2025 (this dead­line will NOT be extended). 

Pan­el 25

At the bor­ders of bio­med­i­cine: how health and care are recon­fig­ured as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise

In con­tem­po­rary soci­eties, neolib­er­al eco­nom­ic arrange­ments and the rise of con­sumerism have sig­nif­i­cant­ly reshaped cul­tur­al expec­ta­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the body, fram­ing health as a high­ly indi­vid­u­al­ized and moral­ly charged respon­si­bil­i­ty. Indi­vid­u­als are expect­ed to seek knowl­edge, exer­cise moral judg­ment, par­tic­i­pate in health­care deci­sions, and min­i­mize health risks through per­son­al choic­es. This empha­sis on per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty is reflect­ed not only in pub­lic health dis­cours­es but also in knowl­edge domains that sit at the epis­temic bound­aries of bio­med­i­cine. Con­se­quent­ly, it is impor­tant to explore how these new pub­lic health dis­cours­es have cre­at­ed space for alter­na­tive practices—such as med­i­ta­tion, nutri­tion­al ther­a­pies, dance ther­a­py, and heal­ing meth­ods drawn from natur­opa­thy and homeopathy—to enter the health­care are­na. These prac­tices are sup­port­ed by an increased empha­sis on indi­vid­ual choice, ther­a­peu­tic plu­ral­ism, and asso­ci­at­ed fund­ing packages. 

Approach­es that encom­pass health and well­ness prac­tices that lie out­side and are not accept­ed with­in bio­med­i­cine, oth­er­wise labeled as “refused knowl­edge”, do not sim­ply reflect an alleged oppo­si­tion to bio­med­ical advice stem­ming from health illit­er­a­cy or dis­trust of med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. Instead, they sig­ni­fy a demand from cit­i­zens, con­sumers, and patient advo­ca­cy groups to become more informed and account­able in their rela­tion­ship with bio­med­i­cine. This trend involves “open­ing the black box” of bio­med­i­cine, crit­i­cal­ly assess­ing its inner work­ings. Fur­ther research is need­ed to explore how alter­na­tive knowl­edge sys­tems chal­lenge bio­med­ical bound­aries and con­tribute to shap­ing con­tem­po­rary under­stand­ings of health and care. 

This pan­el aims to bring togeth­er mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary STS research to deep­en our under­stand­ing of the social and epis­temic con­di­tions under which health and care are dis­cur­sive­ly and mate­ri­al­ly enact­ed as “do-able prob­lems” at the mar­gins of bio­med­ical sci­ence. It seeks to ana­lyze the extent to which such enact­ment may reduce indi­vid­u­als’ reliance on pre­vail­ing med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers by pro­mot­ing activ­i­ties such as self-care, health enhance­ment, chron­ic dis­ease man­age­ment, and the acqui­si­tion of diag­nos­tic and ther­a­peu­tic skills, there­by increas­ing­ly shift­ing med­ical exper­tise and respon­si­bil­i­ty to the individual.

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit the­o­ret­i­cal, empir­i­cal, and/or method­olog­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that explore how forms of health and care emerg­ing at the bound­aries of sci­ence reshape bio­med­ical author­i­ty while becom­ing entan­gled in con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics of life. 

We espe­cial­ly encour­age a focus on the inter­sec­tion of knowl­edge-mak­ing prac­tices and indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion process­es, and how these process­es are enact­ed in rela­tion to bod­i­ly expe­ri­ences, health, and care man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to the empha­sis on per­son­al and moral respon­si­bil­i­ty for health. 

Con­trib­u­tors may focus on the fol­low­ing dimensions: 

• Ana­lyze how health and care are prac­ticed at the bound­aries of bio­med­ical sciences. 

• Exam­ine clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tems, tech­ni­cal objects, ther­a­peu­tic prac­tices, care rela­tion­ships, self-exper­i­men­tal tech­niques, evi­dence pro­duc­tion, and pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies that either rein­force or chal­lenge the nar­ra­tives and nor­ma­tive stances fram­ing health as an indi­vid­u­al­ized moral respon­si­bil­i­ty and per­son­al duty. 

• Explore knowl­edge legit­imiza­tion strate­gies employed to frame health and care as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise. 

• Pro­vide method­olog­i­cal reflec­tions on the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a non-nor­ma­tive, sym­met­ri­cal per­spec­tive when study­ing health and care prac­tices beyond the bio­med­ical, while also con­sid­er­ing the researcher’s posi­tion­al­i­ty in the field.

If you have any ques­tions please email to stefano.crabu@unipd.it.

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CfP to the pan­el „On Tin­ker­ing with Bod­i­ly Waste and Care”
7th Nordic STS Con­fer­ence: STS in and out of the Laboratory
11–13 June 2025
Stockholm

Orga­niz­ers:
Malis­sa Kay Shaw, Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sci­ences & Phar­ma­cy in St. Louis
Liwen Shih, Taipei Med­ical University 

Sub­mis­sion link: https://www.nordicsts.se/call-for-abstracts/

Dead­line: March 1st

Title max 150 char­ac­ters and Abstract max 250 words.

Abstract:
“Why did care become an object of con­cern and what is it about care that war­rants being stud­ied and attend­ed to in social sci­ence writ­ing. This ques­tion can­not be answered by point­ing to bare facts, but has to do with val­ues.” (Mol et al. 2010:9)

“What is hap­pen­ing when we imag­ine oth­er­wise worth­less, even dan­ger­ous, human wastes as infor­ma­tive and valu­able viral sen­tinels?” (Ander­son 2024) 

Waste is tra­di­tion­al­ly some­thing unwant­ed, or use­less, that should be discarded—intrinsically defined in rela­tion to things per­ceived as valu­able or pro­duc­tive. The­o­riza­tions of waste often draw on Dou­glas’ (1984) fram­ing of “dirt as mat­ter out of place,” a means to explore social cat­e­go­riza­tions of pol­lut­ing, taboo, and dan­ger­ous sub­stances. This is use­ful when con­sid­er­ing bod­i­ly wastes (sub­stances com­mon­ly imbued with dis­gust and repul­sion), espe­cial­ly when out­side the body where they are “out of place,” which negates their poten­tial capac­i­ties to be reimag­ined as valuable/useful.
Sim­i­lar to oth­er forms of waste, bod­i­ly wastes pose sym­bol­ic and mate­r­i­al con­se­quences, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the embod­i­ment of their social dis­gust, and their con­tain­ment or dis­pos­al. How we care for bod­i­ly waste—both sym­bol­i­cal­ly and materially—affects present and future indi­vid­u­als, net­works of human and non­hu­man actors, the envi­ron­ment, and mul­ti­species gen­er­a­tional col­lec­tives. This pan­el pro­pos­es engag­ing with the notion of care to reimag­ine bod­i­ly waste and its alter­na­tive rela­tion­al influences.
STS approach­es, inspired by Celia Roberts, Annemarie Mol, and María Puig de la Bel­la­casa, frame care as col­lec­tive, dis­trib­uted prac­tices that involve dynam­ic inter­ac­tions between humans, non­hu­man actors, and tech­nolo­gies. Care is nei­ther sta­t­ic or ten­ta­tive, but con­tin­u­al, sus­tained enact­ments that shape cur­rent and future worlds. By attend­ing to the ways care is enact­ed through embod­ied, rela­tion­al, and mate­r­i­al process­es, STS schol­ar­ship helps uncov­er the ten­sions, inequal­i­ties, and con­tin­u­al con­se­quences embed­ded in care prac­tices. Draw­ing on this, our pan­el aims to use care to medi­ate waste as an actor with­in var­i­ous con­texts and spec­u­late on its val­ue and lack there­of. Sim­i­lar to waste, what is cared for and what is not, cor­re­sponds with what is val­ued and de-val­ued, and these val­ues are passed onto and shape future humans and non-humans alike (Fre­den­gren and Åsberg 2020:57).
We invite schol­ars to use care to spec­u­late on the val­ue of bod­i­ly waste in diverse con­texts. This may entail ask­ing: what is the rela­tion­al­i­ty of bod­i­ly waste; how may new techno­sci­en­tif­ic, bioso­cial, or polit­i­cal eco­nom­ic prac­tices trans­form what waste is and can do. Our own research in the realm of repro­duc­tive health offers exam­ples. For instance, when con­sti­tut­ing the uter­ine lin­ing, men­stru­al sub­stance is use­ful, con­tribut­ing to embryo devel­op­ment. But when expelled from the body, men­stru­al flu­id is “dirty,” requir­ing dis­creet hygiene prac­tices in many cul­tures. Sym­bol­isms of men­stru­al filth shape these prac­tices and accept­able men­stru­al prod­ucts, cur­tail­ing the suit­abil­i­ty of reusable prod­ucts and cre­at­ing addi­tion­al waste that impacts the envi­ron­ment and future inter­species gen­er­a­tions. Men­stru­al “filth” sym­bol­ism lim­its techno­sci­en­tif­ic ven­tures to reframe men­stru­al flu­id as a biosen­sor— trans­form­ing “waste” into a valu­able, infor­ma­tive sub­stance. Mis­car­ried embryos and abort­ed fetus­es, once expelled from the body, are often sim­i­lar­ly cat­e­go­rized as med­ical waste with­in bio­med­ical sys­tems. Those entan­gled with this “waste,” how­ev­er, mourn an unborn child, or rec­og­nize a biosig­nif­i­cant sub­stance that imparts knowl­edge of repro­duc­tive poten­tial. In such remak­ings, what was pre­vi­ous­ly deemed “waste” can become crit­i­cal tools for advanc­ing sci­en­tif­ic inquiries in diag­nos­tic tech­niques, stem cell research, devel­op­men­tal biol­o­gy, or genet­ic stud­ies. This shift high­lights the rela­tion­al nature of val­ue, where the enact­ment of waste and non-waste is con­tin­gent on the “waste’s” con­text, capac­i­ty, and fram­ing. Con­tin­u­ing to tin­ker with bod­i­ly wastes, of which there are many, and notions of care may offer a way to re-val­ue “waste” and trans­form its engage­ment with more-than-human worlds, both present and future. 

Ref­er­ences
Ander­son, War­wick (2024) Excre­men­tal haunt­ings, or the waste of mod­ern bod­ies. Soci­ety for Social Stud­ies of Sci­ence. https://4sonline.org/news_manager.php?page=37981.
Dou­glas, Mary (1984) Puri­ty and dan­ger: An analy­sis of con­cepts of pol­lu­tion and taboo. Routledge.
Fre­den­gren, Christi­na and Åsberg, Cecil­ia (2020) Check­ing in with deep time: intra­gen­er­a­tional care in reg­is­ters of fem­i­nist posthu­man­i­ties, the case of Gärstadsverken. In Deter­ri­to­ri­al­iz­ing the future: Her­itage in, of and after the Anthro­pocene, Rod­ney Har­ri­son and Col­in Ster­ling (eds). Open Human­i­ties Press, pp 56–95.
Mol, Annemarie, Moser, Ingunn, and Pols, Jean­nette, eds (2010) Care: putting prac­tice in the­o­ry. In Care in prac­tice: On tin­ker­ing in clin­ics, homes and farms. Tran­script Pub­lish­ing, pp 7‑25.

More infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence can be found here.

We look for­ward to receiv­ing your sub­mis­sions. If you have any ques­tions or want to dis­cuss paper ideas or pre­sen­ta­tion for­mats, please feel free to reach out to us!

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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?

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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.

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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.

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