Datum
07. Juni – 10. Juni 2023
Panel at the 16th international SIEF congress in Brno, Czech Republic
Short Abstract:
When, why, and in what social and material conditions does medical or
healthcare collapse occur? This panel invites papers that critically
reflect on conditions of healthcare or medical crisis, uncertainty, and
collapse.
Long Abstract:
While the pandemic has exposed the many serious shortcomings and
inadequacies of contemporary healthcare systems, the ensuing economic
decline has put a serious strain on their functioning and accessibility,
sometimes pushing them to the verge of collapse. The last three years
have brought attention to the precarity and fragility of contemporary
healthcare and medical systems, though calls for their post-pandemic
reimagining or reform have arguably been sparse.
Within the broader rubric of uncertainty, drawing on the entire spectrum
of systematic malfunctions, this panel invites papers that speak about
cases of medical precarity, including instances of systemic malfunction,
policy mismanagement, and political abuse that lead malfunctioning
systems to collapse. When, why, and in what social and material
conditions does medical or healthcare collapse occur? By what metrics or
standards do people define and measure medical or healthcare collapse?
Alternatively, how do healthcare and medicine co-exist, or even thrive,
under conditions of systematic malfunction? In what ways might Western
biomedicine contribute to medical precarity, including some patients and
some diseases at the expense of others?
We welcome papers taking on topics such as, for example:
- pandemic and post-pandemic healthcare malfunctions,
- cost-driven healthcare inaccessibility,
- war-time healthcare,
- inequality by design: medical exclusion of certain groups or health
issues,
- various stages of systemic healthcare malfunction,
- healthcare or medical collapse in all its forms.