Veranstaltungskalender

Call for Films for the next edi­tion of the „Jean Rouch Inter­na­tion­al Festival”

We are pleased to announce the open­ing of the call for films for the 45th edi­tion of the Jean Rouch Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val, which will be held from May 7 to 14, 2026.

Our pur­pose is to reflect the vital­i­ty of social sci­ences research and to give an insight into the diver­si­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty, and orig­i­nal­i­ty of cin­e­mat­ic gen­res and narratives.

Sub­mis­sions are open until Novem­ber 16, 2025

for doc­u­men­tary films com­plet­ed after Novem­ber 17, 2024 (dead­line for the pre­vi­ous call for films).

The entry fee is €10 per film until Octo­ber, 19th then €15 from Octo­ber, 20th.

Please sub­mit your films as soon as possible:
https://filmfreeway.com/JeanRouchInternationalFilmFestival

All mem­bers of the pro­gram­ming com­mit­tee are look­ing for­ward to dis­cov­er­ing your films!

For any infor­ma­tion request, please con­tact: submissionsjeanrouchfestival@gmail.com
The last edi­tion of the fes­ti­val on video

For the first time, thanks to the amaz­ing work of Léa Bernard, Célimène Mar­rac­ci, Inga Pet­rosyan, Lisa Rame­court, Noame Toumi­at et Osman Yıl­maz, stu­dents at EHESS, we inter­viewed the film­mak­ers who attend­ed the fes­ti­val in 2025!

Farah Kassem, Ruth Beck­er­mann, Emmanuel Gri­maud, Mat­ti­js van de Port, Cate­ri­na Pasquali­no, Pas­cal Cesaro, Anu­pa­ma Srini­vasan et Anir­ban Dut­ta… They explain how their film was made and give their vision of doc­u­men­tary cinema.

Watch it now on YouTube and on our new Canal U channel!

A project coor­di­nat­ed by:

Béné­dicte Bar­il­lé, Tilou Mar­tin, Gaia Mar­i­ana Rangel Pena­gos, Michel Tabet, Alex­ia Van­hée, Nina Wöhrel

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CfP fpr Spe­cial Issue: Curare Teach­ing Forum
Dead­line for sub­mis­sions: Octo­ber 20, 2025

In issue 48(2025)2 of Curare, we will con­tin­ue our Teach­ing Forum series in form of a spe­cial issue and there­fore ask med­ical anthro­pol­o­gists about the texts, books, films or oth­er media that they like to use in teach­ing. We are inter­est­ed in the fol­low­ing questions: 

* Why is your favourite text or medi­um espe­cial­ly suit­able for teach­ing med­ical anthropology?
* What can be demon­strat­ed or dis­cussed par­tic­u­lar­ly well using the text or medi­um in question?
The for­mat of the texts are open, they could include short essay­is­tic texts, the­o­ret­i­cal review arti­cles and per­son­al reviews of many years of teach­ing experience. 

Any­one inter­est­ed in writ­ing a text in Ger­man or Eng­lish is wel­come to con­tact the edi­to­r­i­al board at curareteachingforum@agem.de.

Please find for­mer con­tri­bu­tions to the Curare Teach­ing Forum at the fol­low­ing links:

Eit­en­berg­er, Mag­dale­na & Lehn­er, Lisa 2022. Teach­ing Mul­ti­plic­i­ties. Von der Arbeit mit mul­ti­me­di­alen Arbeit­en. Curare 45, 2: 101–105: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1480/1500

Olarte-Sier­ra, María Fer­nan­da 2022. On Bod­ies and Our Own Bod­ies. Care and ­ Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty When Teach­ing about Death and Loss. Curare 45, 2: 106–109: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1481/1525.

Betsch­er, Silke & Falge, Chris­tiane 2021. Kol­lab­o­ra­tiv und Online Forschen mit Studieren­den und Stadtteilforscher*innen in Zeit­en von Coro­na. Curare 44, 1–4: 176–179: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/15860

Wolf, Ange­li­ka 2021. The Spir­it Catch­es You and You Fall Down. Die Fasz­i­na­tion ethno­grafis­ch­er Fall­beispiele in der Lehre. Curare 44, 1–4: 180–183: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1587.

Irwin, Rachel 2020. Covi­dog­ra­phy. Teach­ing Ethno­graph­ic Meth­ods in a Pan­dem­ic. Curare 43, 1–4: 152–155: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1537.

Jäger, Mar­gret & Wächter, Afsaneh 2020. Teach­ing Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy in Front of the Screen. A Short Essay on Online Teach­ing With Med­ical Stu­dents Dur­ing Sum­mer Term 2020 in Aus­tria. Curare 43, 1–4: 156–159: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1538.

Jäger, Mar­gret (2020). Zu Besuch beim Hausarzt. Dr. Peri­no über die Schul­ter schauen. Curare 43, 1–4: 160–162: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1539.

Klinke, Nola; Brown, Shan-Estelle; Althuis, Aj; Math­ews, Jana; Namin­git, Sheryll; Pieczyn­s­ki, Jay Rollins; Rus­sel, Emi­ly Rollins & San­ti­a­go-Nar­vaez, Bren­dal­iz 2020. Teach­ing COVID-19 in a Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Team. Empha­siz­ing Holism and the Rel­e­vance of Anthro­pol­o­gy. Curare 43, 1–4: 163–67: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1540.

Stei­gler, Kathrin 2020. Medi­zin­sys­teme in Afri­ka. Kom­mu­nika­tion­s­the­o­retis­che und kul­tur­al­is­muskri­tis­che Per­spek­tiv­en. Curare 43, 1–4: 168–171: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1541.

Krause, Jan­i­na 2020. „The Egg and the Sperm“. Zur Gemachtheit biol­o­gis­ch­er Wis­sens­bestände über Geschlecht. Curare 43, 1–4: 172–174: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1542.

Wolff, Eber­hard, Der Benjamin’sche „Chock“ in der Lehrdi­dak­tik. Curare 43 (2020) 1–4: 175–176: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1543.

Ame­lang, Katrin 2019. Ray­na Rapp’s „Real-Time Fetus“. Aktuell gebliebene Denkanstöße eines fem­i­nis­tisch-medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­chen Blicks auf Ultra­schall­bilder in der Prä­na­tal­diag­nos­tik. Curare 42, 1+2: 91–93: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1631.

Keck, Ver­e­na 2019. Von bali­ne­sis­chen Heil­ern zu ART und „cyborgs“. Eine Ein­führung zur Band­bre­ite und Rel­e­vanz der Medi­zineth­nolo­gie. Curare 42, 1+2: 94–95: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1632.

Park, Sung-Joon. Think­ing-with favorite reads in the anthro­pol­o­gy of glob­al health and envi­ron­men­tal health. Curare 42, 1+2: 96–100: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1633.

Eeuwijk, Peter van 2019. Von Ayahuas­ca bis Crit­i­cal Glob­al Health. Wan­del und Beständigkeit in der medi­zineth­nol­o­gis­chen Lehre. Curare 42, 1+2: 101–105: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1634.

Rehs­mann, Julia 2019. Food for (Stu­dents’) Thought. Graph­ic Nov­els in der medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­chen Lehre. Curare 42, 1+2: 106–108: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1635.

Simon, Michael 2019. Arthur E. Imhofs Arbeit­en zur His­torischen Demogra­phie. In Curare 42, 1+2: 109–112: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1636.

Wöh­lke, Sabine 2019. Todo sobre mi madre. Ein Filmtipp für medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­che und ‑ethis­che Lehre zum The­ma Organtrans­plan­ta­tion. Curare 42, 1+2: 113–116: https://curarejournal.org/ojs/index.php/cur/article/view/1637.

Kind regards from the
Curare Edi­to­r­i­al Board

Curare. Zeitschrift für Medizinethnologie
Curare. Jour­nal of Med­ical Anthropology

found­ed in 1978, bilin­gual (Ger­man, English)

edit­ed by
Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft Eth­nolo­gie und Medi­zin (AGEM)
Asso­ci­a­tion for Anthro­pol­o­gy and Med­i­cine (AGEM)
Fol­low us on Instagram

https://curarejournal.org

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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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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 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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CFP_Extended

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Call out for papers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds Cen­tre for Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Con­fer­ence in April 2026: „Nav­i­gat­ing the Chang­ing Land­scape of Disability/Studies”

The call for papers is avail­able here: https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/conference/call-for-papers/ which has links through to the sub­mis­sion system.

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„Ethnopsy­chi­a­trie – neue Wege in der Behand­lung Geflüchteter in der Dominanzkultur?”

Die Ver­anstal­tungsrei­he, organ­isiert von der Staats­bib­lio­thek zu Berlin, find­et jeden 2. Mittwoch ab 15. Okto­ber 2025 bis 14. Jan­u­ar 2026 in ins­ge­samt vier Ter­mi­nen statt. Eine Anmel­dung über die Web­seite ist erwünscht.

Deutsch­land ist ein Ein­wan­derungs­land, auch wenn Einige dies nicht wahrhaben wollen. Men­schen aus allen Teilen der Erde leben in Deutsch­land, von denen viele eine Trau­ma­tisierung erfahren haben, weil sie unter bekla­genswerten Umstän­den geflüchtet sind. Gewal­ter­fahrun­gen vor und während der Flucht waren für sie all­ge­gen­wär­tig. Unter diesen Geflüchteten befind­en sich viele sehr junge Men­schen und auch alle­in­ste­hende Kinder. Ihr Sta­tus in diesem Lande ist prekär. Ohne Sprachken­nt­nisse, ohne angemessene schulis­che Bil­dung und ohne ther­a­peutis­che Betreu­ung sind sie sich selb­st über­lassen. Wir sind zurzeit nicht in der Lage, ihnen ther­a­peutisch zu helfen, nicht nur, weil der poli­tis­che Wille dazu fehlt, son­dern auch, weil Therapeut:innen mit weni­gen Aus­nah­men nicht dafür aus­ge­bildet sind, Men­schen aus anderen Kul­turen angemessen zu betreuen.

Die Vor­tragsrei­he zur Ethnopsy­chi­a­trie wird in vier Teilen ver­suchen, die Geschichte und Prax­is der Ther­a­pie von Ange­höri­gen ein­er anderen Kul­tur zu erläutern und deut­lich zu machen, dass die Aus­bil­dung von kul­tursen­si­blen Therapeut:innen drin­gend geboten ist. Dies ist nicht nur eine Forderung, die sich aus dem Gebot der Men­schlichkeit ergibt, son­dern eine poli­tis­che Notwendigkeit, um Radikalisierun­gen und mehr Gewalt als Folge von erlit­te­nen Trau­ma­ta zu verhindern.

Die Vor­tra­gen­den sind Prof. Dr. Nor­bert Finzsch, Sig­mund Freud Pri­vatU­ni­ver­sität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kluge, Lei­t­erin des Zen­trums für Interkul­turelle Psy­chi­a­trie und Psy­chother­a­pie and der Char­ité Berlin, Gert Levy, langjähriger Psy­chother­a­peut auf dem Gebi­et interkul­tureller Ther­a­pie, und Roz­erin Baysöz Kind, Dok­torandin der Psy­chother­a­piewis­senschaft an der Sig­mund Freud Pri­vatU­ni­ver­sität Berlin.

Eine Anmel­dung ist über die jew­eili­gen Links auf den Seit­en möglich:

Gegenüber­tra­gung und Ohn­macht in der Arbeit mit Geflüchteten
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kluge
Mittwoch, 12. Novem­ber 2025, 19 Uhr
Unter den Lin­den 8, Theodor-Fontane-Saal

Weit­ere Vorträge:

„Marary Andri­ana“ – Die Kranken sind die Könige. Tran­skul­turelle Psy­chi­a­trie im Spiegel ethnopsy­chi­a­trisch­er Praxis
Gert Levy
Mittwoch, 10. Dezem­ber 2025, 19 Uhr
Unter den Lin­den 8, Theodor-Fontane-Saal

„Er ver­ste­ht mich nicht“ – Wenn geflüchtete Kinder in der Psy­chother­a­pie nicht ankommen
Roz­erin Baysöz Kind
Mittwoch, 14. Jan­u­ar 2026, 19 Uhr
Unter den Lin­den 8, Theodor-Fontane-Saal

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HORIZONTAL! Das Kranken­bett und die Welt im Liegen
Konzeptvorstel­lung zur geplanten Son­der­ausstel­lung im Berlin­er Medi­z­in­his­torischen Muse­um der Charité
IMHAR Salon
14. Novem­ber 2025
16:00–17:30 h/4–5:30 p.m. CET
mit Prof. Dr. Moni­ka Ankele

Mod­er­a­tion: Prof. Dr. Céline Kaiser

auf Deutsch

Wie verän­dert sich die Wahrnehmung der Welt, wenn wir sie im Liegen erleben? Die Ausstel­lung „Hor­i­zon­tal! Das Kranken­bett und die Welt im Liegen“ lädt dazu ein, den Blick zu wech­seln – weg von ein­er ver­tikal dominierten Welt hin zu den oft unsicht­baren Per­spek­tiv­en aus dem Kranken­bett: Wie prägt der mikroskopis­che Raum des Kranken­betts das Erleben von Krankheit und Teil­habe? Welche his­torischen, sozialen und poli­tis­chen Bedeu­tun­gen trägt der liegende Kör­p­er? Und wie lassen sich medizin/historische, kün­st­lerische und aktivis­tis­che Per­spek­tiv­en miteinan­der ver­weben? Und wie kann die Ausstel­lung inklu­siv und par­tizipa­tiv gestal­tet werden?

Die His­torik­erin Prof. Dr. Moni­ka Ankele ist seit März 2024 Direk­torin des Berlin­er Medi­z­in­his­torischen Muse­ums der Char­ité und Pro­fes­sorin für Medi­zingeschichte und medi­zinis­che Muse­olo­gie an der Char­ité – Uni­ver­sitätsmedi­zin Berlin. Sie ist eben­so Grün­dungsmit­glied der Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion for Med­ical & Health Human­i­ties and Artis­tic Research, e.V. und ko-leit­et das damit ver­bun­dene An-Insti­tut IMHAR.

Anmel­dun­gen bitte unter anmelden@imhar.net!

IMHAR Insti­tute for Med­ical & Health Human­i­ties and Artis­tic Research

An-Insti­tut der HKS, Ottersberg
Große Straße 107
28870 Ottersberg
Deutschland

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VORTRAGSREIHE DES INSTITUTS FÜR GESCHICHTE UND ETHIK DER MEDIZIN HEIDELBERG IM WINTERSEMESTER 2025/2026
Pro­fes­sion­al­ität und pro­fes­sionelle Hal­tung in der Medi­zin: His­torische und ethis­che Perspektiven

Was macht gute Ärztin­nen und Ärzte aus? Dem Ide­al nach erschöpft sich Pro­fes­sion­al­ität nicht in fach­lich­er Exzel­lenz, son­dern umfasst Hal­tung, Selb­stre­flex­ion und einen part­ner­schaftlichen Umgang mit Patient:innen. Die Vor­tragsrei­he beleuchtet diese Fra­gen aus eth­nol­o­gis­ch­er, his­torisch­er und medi­zinis­ch­er Per­spek­tive. Die Beiträge zeigen, wie vielfältig und zugle­ich her­aus­fordernd Pro­fes­sion­al­ität ver­standen wer­den kann: Sei es im Prozess der Iden­tität­sen­twick­lung von Studieren­den, im Umgang mit dem toten Kör­p­er im Prä­pari­erkurs, in der Zusam­me­nar­beit mit Genesungsbegleiter:innen in der Psy­chi­a­trie oder in den Patien­ten­bildern des 20. Jahrhun­derts. Ger­ade die his­torischen Beispiele verdeut­lichen, dass Vorstel­lun­gen ärztlich­er Pro­fes­sion­al­ität und Leit­bilder keineswegs uni­versell gültig sind, son­dern in hohem Maße kontin­gent und dem gesellschaftlichen Wan­del unter­wor­fen. Damit rückt die Rei­he die Verän­der­barkeit und Vielschichtigkeit pro­fes­sioneller Hal­tung in den Mit­telpunkt: Pro­fes­sion­al­ität erscheint nicht als fest­gelegtes Ide­al, son­dern als Aushand­lung­sprozess zwis­chen Wis­senschaft und Erfahrung, zwis­chen Nähe und Dis­tanz, zwis­chen den Erwartun­gen von Patient:innen und den Selb­st­bildern der Ärzt:innen. Sie lädt dazu ein, die Medi­zin als ein Feld zu ver­ste­hen, das sich ständig neu erfind­et – im Span­nungs­feld von Geschichte, Ethik und Gegenwart.

Online per Zoom: https://eu02web.zoom‑x.de/j/68528452549?pwd=aEJvZHlTT01PQ0NFVlRkY09jSVFHZz09.

Pro­gramm

18.11.2025 / 18:15 Uhr
Anatomie der Verän­derung: Begeg­nun­gen mit dem ver­stor­be­nen Kör­p­er im Präparierkurs
Geva Her­lyn, M. A.
Insti­tut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medi­zin, Uni­ver­sität Heidelberg

Weit­ere Vorträge:

09.12.2025 / 18:15 Uhr
Pon­tif­ex min­imus: Genesungsbegleiter:innen als Verbindung zwis­chen mul­ti­pro­fes­sionellem Team und Betrof­fe­nen in der Psychiatrie
Dr. Ben­jamin Drechsel
Ex-In Gene­sungs­be­gleit­er, Klinik für All­ge­meine Psy­chi­a­trie, Uni­ver­sität­sklinikum Heidelberg

10.02.2026 / 18.15 Uhr
Vom Men­schen­ma­te­r­i­al zum mündi­gen Patient? Patien­ten­bilder im Kon­text der (De)Professionalisierung der Ärzteschaft im lan­gen 20. Jahrhundert
Dr. Christoph Schwamm
Insti­tut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medi­zin, Uni­ver­sität Heidelberg

Down­load Fly­er: https://t1p.de/xq4fc
Kontakt

Insti­tut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin
Ruprecht-Karls-Uni­ver­sität Heidelberg
Im Neuen­heimer Feld 327
69120 Heidelberg

Tele­fon: 06221 54–8212
E‑Mail: christoph.schwamm@histmed.uni-heidelberg.de

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BRC Autumn Pro­gramme 2025 will intro­duce you to the col­lec­tion and facil­i­tate a dia­logue between you, your prac­tice, this year’s themes and the art­works. The course is led by artist and BRC Cura­tor, Helen Knowles and artist Dr. Leni Dothan.

Four-Week Course (Online):
Dates: Wednes­days, 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM BST Novem­ber 19,26, Decem­ber 3, 10. & Sat­ur­day, Dec 6, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM BST.
All lec­tures, work­shops, and dis­cus­sions will take place online.
Cost: 550GBP per per­son 400GBP Con­ces­sion Rate.
A 100GBP deposit is required to secure a place for both courses.

BRC_Autumn pro­gram

The course will empow­er you to artic­u­late your own prac­tice and respons­es to the col­lec­tion in a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment whilst explor­ing crit­i­cal per­spec­tives in the field of birth.

Mid­wives, aca­d­e­mics, cura­tors, artists, medics, health pro­fes­sion­als, art his­to­ri­ans, pol­i­cy advi­sors and the gen­er­al pub­lic inter­est­ed in child­birth through the lens of art, are all wel­come. As a par­tic­i­pant, you will enter the course with your own skill set and fin­ish, with bespoke visu­al, tex­tu­al, audi­to­ry, pho­to­graph­ic, filmic and/or per­for­ma­tive mate­r­i­al, to be used there­after in your own future work.

Work­shops include explor­ing the aes­thet­ic, eth­i­cal, polit­i­cal and visu­al dis­cours­es of birth via text, film, and per­for­mance. Addi­tion­al­ly, this year, we present a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage with a curat­ed selec­tion of works from the col­lec­tion that are not ordi­nar­i­ly acces­si­ble to the pub­lic. In a ded­i­cat­ed online space these pieces will enrich par­tic­i­pants’ engage­ment of the autumn programme’s themes.

Through lec­tures by lead­ing artists in the field, we will intro­duce dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives to ini­ti­ate in-depth discussions.
Themes include:
• Nav­i­gat­ing mor­tal­i­ty – from preterm birth to post-partum
• Artis­tic respons­es to preterm birth.
• How the col­lec­tion informs and unpacks dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives in mid­wifery, med­i­cine and edu­ca­tion, and its poten­tial to improve prac­tice and policy.
• The Collection’s impact on fem­i­nist art prac­tices and the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of visu­al dis­cours­es of birth into art history.
• Cen­sor­ship of art­works on birth, insti­tu­tion­al respons­es, ethics and the law
2025 speak­ers include: Grisel­da Pol­lock (online keynote), Court­ney Con­rad, Andrea Kho­ra, Helen Knowles and Leni Dothan, with more announced soon.

There is one bur­sary place available.

To book your place or for more infor­ma­tion, vis­it the Sum­mer School page on the Birth Rites Col­lec­tion web­site: https://www.birthritescollection.org.uk/autumn-program or email helen@birthrites.org.uk

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„Val­ues at the End of Life: The Log­ic of Pal­lia­tive Care”
Online talk with Roi Livne
Orga­niz­er: the Social Stud­ies of Ethics, Moral­i­ty, and Val­ues Network
19 Novem­ber (4.30–5.30pm, UK time)
Reg­is­tra­tion: eventbrite link

This event will take place via Zoom. Please reg­is­ter via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the meeting.

Roi Livne will be talk­ing about his book, Val­ues at the End of Life: The Log­ic of Pal­lia­tive Care (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press). All are warm­ly welcome!
Over the past fifty years, “the end of life” has become the cen­ter of exten­sive eco­nom­ic, pol­i­cy, eth­i­cal, and med­ical dis­cus­sions in the U.S. Health econ­o­mists mea­sure and eval­u­ate its cost; ethi­cists debate the moral­i­ty of var­i­ous approach­es to “end-of-life care”; pol­i­cy­mak­ers pon­der alter­na­tive “end of life”-related poli­cies; and clin­i­cians apply a spe­cial­ized approach (hos­pice and pal­lia­tive care) to treat patients whom they diag­nose as being at “the end of life.”
This talk sum­ma­rizes much of the argu­ment of “Val­ues at the End of Life” (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2019). It ana­lyzes the pro­lif­er­a­tion of con­ver­sa­tions on “the end of life” as emblem­at­ic of a pecu­liar moment in human his­to­ry. Ours is a peri­od where mod­ern growth stag­nates and the main chal­lenge devel­oped soci­eties face becomes delin­eat­ing the lim­its of human agency and gov­ern­ing pop­u­la­tions with­in these lim­its. Draw­ing on a com­bi­na­tion of his­tor­i­cal and ethno­graph­ic analy­sis of the work of pal­lia­tive care clin­i­cians in three Cal­i­for­nia hos­pi­tals, I fol­low how the lim­its of what can be done, med­ical­ly and finan­cial­ly, to pro­long life are com­mu­ni­cat­ed to severe­ly ill patients and fam­i­lies. I use this empir­i­cal case to flesh out dif­fer­ent dimen­sions in the con­cept of econ­o­miza­tion, which has recent­ly attract­ed much the­o­ret­i­cal atten­tion in eco­nom­ic sociology.

About the speak­er: Roi Livne is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Soci­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan. An eco­nom­ic soci­ol­o­gist at heart, he stud­ies every­day eco­nom­ic life and its inter­sec­tions with moral­i­ty. His has writ­ten about death and cap­i­tal­ism, the tech­no-pol­i­tics of sov­er­eign debts, and the first months of COVID-19. Present­ly, he is writ­ing about the moral econ­o­my of pric­ing hos­pi­tal care in the U.S., the notion of fini­tude in social the­o­ry, and the con­cept of economization.

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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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Programmflyer_Heil und Heilung

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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.

Perma­link

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

**Please send abstracts to john.taylor@latrobe.edu.au (cc. tarryn.phillips@latrobe.edu.au)**

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.

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.

Perma­link

„Ethnopsy­chi­a­trie – neue Wege in der Behand­lung Geflüchteter in der Dominanzkultur?”

Die Ver­anstal­tungsrei­he, organ­isiert von der Staats­bib­lio­thek zu Berlin, find­et jeden 2. Mittwoch ab 15. Okto­ber 2025 bis 14. Jan­u­ar 2026 in ins­ge­samt vier Ter­mi­nen statt. Eine Anmel­dung über die Web­seite ist erwünscht.

Deutsch­land ist ein Ein­wan­derungs­land, auch wenn Einige dies nicht wahrhaben wollen. Men­schen aus allen Teilen der Erde leben in Deutsch­land, von denen viele eine Trau­ma­tisierung erfahren haben, weil sie unter bekla­genswerten Umstän­den geflüchtet sind. Gewal­ter­fahrun­gen vor und während der Flucht waren für sie all­ge­gen­wär­tig. Unter diesen Geflüchteten befind­en sich viele sehr junge Men­schen und auch alle­in­ste­hende Kinder. Ihr Sta­tus in diesem Lande ist prekär. Ohne Sprachken­nt­nisse, ohne angemessene schulis­che Bil­dung und ohne ther­a­peutis­che Betreu­ung sind sie sich selb­st über­lassen. Wir sind zurzeit nicht in der Lage, ihnen ther­a­peutisch zu helfen, nicht nur, weil der poli­tis­che Wille dazu fehlt, son­dern auch, weil Therapeut:innen mit weni­gen Aus­nah­men nicht dafür aus­ge­bildet sind, Men­schen aus anderen Kul­turen angemessen zu betreuen.

Die Vor­tragsrei­he zur Ethnopsy­chi­a­trie wird in vier Teilen ver­suchen, die Geschichte und Prax­is der Ther­a­pie von Ange­höri­gen ein­er anderen Kul­tur zu erläutern und deut­lich zu machen, dass die Aus­bil­dung von kul­tursen­si­blen Therapeut:innen drin­gend geboten ist. Dies ist nicht nur eine Forderung, die sich aus dem Gebot der Men­schlichkeit ergibt, son­dern eine poli­tis­che Notwendigkeit, um Radikalisierun­gen und mehr Gewalt als Folge von erlit­te­nen Trau­ma­ta zu verhindern.

Die Vor­tra­gen­den sind Prof. Dr. Nor­bert Finzsch, Sig­mund Freud Pri­vatU­ni­ver­sität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kluge, Lei­t­erin des Zen­trums für Interkul­turelle Psy­chi­a­trie und Psy­chother­a­pie and der Char­ité Berlin, Gert Levy, langjähriger Psy­chother­a­peut auf dem Gebi­et interkul­tureller Ther­a­pie, und Roz­erin Baysöz Kind, Dok­torandin der Psy­chother­a­piewis­senschaft an der Sig­mund Freud Pri­vatU­ni­ver­sität Berlin.

Eine Anmel­dung ist über die jew­eili­gen Links auf den Seit­en möglich:

„Marary Andri­ana“ – Die Kranken sind die Könige. Tran­skul­turelle Psy­chi­a­trie im Spiegel ethnopsy­chi­a­trisch­er Praxis
Gert Levy
Mittwoch, 10. Dezem­ber 2025, 19 Uhr
Unter den Lin­den 8, Theodor-Fontane-Saal

Weit­ere Voträge:

„Er ver­ste­ht mich nicht“ – Wenn geflüchtete Kinder in der Psy­chother­a­pie nicht ankommen
Roz­erin Baysöz Kind
Mittwoch, 14. Jan­u­ar 2026, 19 Uhr
Unter den Lin­den 8, Theodor-Fontane-Saal

Perma­link

„Democ­ra­cy as Health”
Work­shop and Edit­ed Volume
June 29–30, 2026,
Gene­va, Switzerland

Dead­line for sub­mis­sion: Jan­u­ary 5th, 2026

This is an announce­ment for a call for papers for a work­shop tak­ing place next sum­mer, which intends to lead to an edit­ed vol­ume, titled ‘Democ­ra­cy as Health.’ This event will take place in Gene­va on June 29–30, 2026, orga­nized by Robert Dean Smith and Pro­fes­sor Aditya Bharad­waj from the Gene­va Grad­u­ate Insti­tute. We have the hon­or to be joined by keynote speak­ers includ­ing Pro­fes­sors Jes­si­ca Mul­li­gan, San­dra Bärn­reuther, Jan­i­na Kehr, and Ruth Prince.

The full call for papers is avail­able at the link below, and attached. We encour­age ethno­graph­i­cal­ly ground­ed per­spec­tives across all con­texts. Abstract sub­mis­sions of up to 500 words should be sent to Robert.Smith@graduateinstitute.ch no lat­er than Jan­u­ary 5th, 2026. The work­shop is in per­son. Par­tial fund­ing stipends are avail­able for par­tic­i­pants on a need-based basis. Par­tic­i­pants should indi­cate their inter­est in finan­cial sup­port at the time of their appli­ca­tion. Should you have any ques­tions, please also feel free to reach out to me directly.

CfP:
Glob­al­ly, pub­licly fund­ed health­care has become increas­ing­ly politi­cized with­in demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es over the past decades. Rang­ing from the politi­ciza­tion of the Unit­ed States’ Afford­able Care Act dubbed ‘Oba­maCare,’ the resis­tance to the increas­ing pri­va­ti­za­tion of the Unit­ed Kingdom’s Nation­al Health Ser­vice, pop­ulist polit­i­cal brand­ings of health­care infra­struc­tures in South Asia, or cit­i­zen activism across con­texts, health has increas­ing­ly entered demo­c­ra­t­ic agen­das. Con­trast­ing from 20th cen­tu­ry polit­i­cal move­ments around health­care that gar­nered momen­tum through spe­cif­ic dis­ease cat­e­gories, such as HIV-AIDS (Biehl 2004) or afflic­tion of specif­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al­ized pop­u­la­tions (Petry­na 2013), con­tem­po­rary politi­ciza­tions are increas­ing­ly mobi­liz­ing broad visions of ‘health’ for elec­toral gains (Kehr, Muinde, and Prince 2023; Coop­er, 2019). In many set­tings, such politi­ciza­tions take the form of one-off schemes that are typ­i­cal­ly polit­i­cal­ly tem­po­rary and par­tial in nature, rely­ing on decades of state neglect in health­care to be per­ceived as suc­cess­ful by the elec­torate. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, this ris­ing elec­toral-politi­ciza­tion of health ser­vices and pro­grams also takes place with­in con­texts of ris­ing health austerity.

There­fore, in this work­shop, we seek to use this emer­gence of health as an explic­it object of elec­toral-polit­i­cal agen­das to think through the con­tem­po­rary rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health, and more broad­ly the pol­i­tics of bio-pol­i­tics. The con­cept of ‘pol­i­tics,’ most broad­ly, has been a long­stand­ing con­cern for med­ical anthro­pol­o­gists’ engage­ment with patients’ expe­ri­ences, and under­stand­ings of pow­er. Sem­i­nal­ly, Foucault’s notion of ‘biopol­i­tics’ has pro­vid­ed a con­cep­tu­al foun­da­tion for med­ical anthro­pol­o­gists to make sense of how process­es of sub­jec­tiviza­tion take place with­in health’s domains, and the gov­ern­men­tal appa­ra­tus­es that ani­mate those process­es. Notably, biopo­lit­i­cal­ly inspired frame­works of pol­i­tics have shaped how anthro­pol­o­gists engage with how patients mobi­lize patho­log­i­cal-bio­log­i­cal iden­ti­ties to place cit­i­zen­ship claims upon the state (Rose and Novas 2005; Biehl 2004; Petry­na 2013; Tick­tin 2011 Nguyen 2010), how bio­med­ical knowl­edge can be used to claim author­i­ty in state spaces (Adams 1998), or how med­i­cine is mobi­lized as a sym­bol of nation­al moder­ni­ty (Broth­er­ton 2012; Al-Dewachi 2017). Yet, neigh­bor­ing dis­ci­plines have point­ed out that the use of pol­i­tics in this lit­er­a­ture may risk con­fin­ing itself to the realm of the bio­log­i­cal, and can “under­mine the polit­i­cal” as an ana­lyt­i­cal cat­e­go­ry by dis­count­ing how oth­er forms of pol­i­tics inter­sect with biol­o­gized pol­i­tics of health (Bird and Lynch 2019). Over­all, the con­cept of ‘pol­i­tics,’ often quick­ly glossed through the ‘pol­i­tics of health,’ main­tains a degree of ambiva­lence in the can­non of med­ical anthropology.

In response, this work­shop seeks to bring togeth­er lead­ing schol­ars to ethno­graph­i­cal­ly think through this in a way that is gen­er­a­tive of nov­el con­cep­tu­al for­mu­la­tions to under­stand the con­tem­po­rary rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health. Democ­ra­cy, in this sense, while ground­ed in process­es of elec­toral-pol­i­tics, is not empir­i­cal­ly con­fined to the prac­tice of vot­ing nor the rit­u­al of elec­tions, but seeks to account for the dif­fer­ent realms of the polit­i­cal that work along­side, with­in, and through, and are also con­struct­ed by, the pol­i­tics of health. In approach­ing these ques­tions, we aim to more explic­it­ly bring togeth­er lit­er­a­ture in med­ical and polit­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy. Doing so par­tic­u­lar­ly takes stalk of how con­cepts of polit­i­cal, affec­tive feel­ings of polit­i­cal exis­tence, and the mate­r­i­al-spec­tral real­i­ties of the state inform sub­jec­tiv­i­ties towards health and care (Aretx­a­ga 2003; Navaro-Yashin 2002; Can­dea 2011; Pos­tero and Eli­noff 2019; Steet 2012; Volle­bergh, Kon­ing, and March­esi, 2021). This inter­sec­tion presents oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with dif­fer­ent read­ings of biopol­i­tics. Specif­i­cal­ly, ear­ly Fou­cauldian ideas of locat­able, tan­gi­ble ‘veins of pow­er’ — as pos­si­ble to see with­in bio­med­ical clin­ics — as well as lat­er Fou­cauldian ideas that pow­er is every­where — as pos­si­ble to see with­in polit­i­cal affects — which need align­ment in order to under­stand con­tem­po­rary for­ma­tions of democ­ra­cy as health.

This edit­ed vol­ume revolves around the idea that, amidst ris­ing fas­cist, author­i­tar­i­an ten­den­cies that rely upon health as an elec­toral-polit­i­cal tool, it is increas­ing­ly urgent to reimag­ine the rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health. This vol­ume will seek to revolve around the fol­low­ing cen­tral questions:

· How does democ­ra­cy reimag­ine the idea of health as an optic, a good, a right, a ser­vice, and more, in rela­tion to the state and the pri­vate sector?

· What do demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es do to the fig­ure of the clin­ic and how does it mod­u­late its gaze?

· What does the rela­tion­ship between democ­ra­cy and health do to imag­i­na­tions and rela­tion­al­i­ties between states and subjects?

· How does health’s elec­toral-polit­i­cal uptake trans­mit into the realm of patient expe­ri­ence, sub­jec­tiv­i­ty and embodiment?

Full CfP as PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x2s1TAuj-E5nbcM9c9GBcbhC3xF0kMWp/view?usp=drive_link

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„Ethnopsy­chi­a­trie – neue Wege in der Behand­lung Geflüchteter in der Dominanzkultur?”

Die Ver­anstal­tungsrei­he, organ­isiert von der Staats­bib­lio­thek zu Berlin, find­et jeden 2. Mittwoch ab 15. Okto­ber 2025 bis 14. Jan­u­ar 2026 in ins­ge­samt vier Ter­mi­nen statt. Eine Anmel­dung über die Web­seite ist erwünscht.

Deutsch­land ist ein Ein­wan­derungs­land, auch wenn Einige dies nicht wahrhaben wollen. Men­schen aus allen Teilen der Erde leben in Deutsch­land, von denen viele eine Trau­ma­tisierung erfahren haben, weil sie unter bekla­genswerten Umstän­den geflüchtet sind. Gewal­ter­fahrun­gen vor und während der Flucht waren für sie all­ge­gen­wär­tig. Unter diesen Geflüchteten befind­en sich viele sehr junge Men­schen und auch alle­in­ste­hende Kinder. Ihr Sta­tus in diesem Lande ist prekär. Ohne Sprachken­nt­nisse, ohne angemessene schulis­che Bil­dung und ohne ther­a­peutis­che Betreu­ung sind sie sich selb­st über­lassen. Wir sind zurzeit nicht in der Lage, ihnen ther­a­peutisch zu helfen, nicht nur, weil der poli­tis­che Wille dazu fehlt, son­dern auch, weil Therapeut:innen mit weni­gen Aus­nah­men nicht dafür aus­ge­bildet sind, Men­schen aus anderen Kul­turen angemessen zu betreuen.

Die Vor­tragsrei­he zur Ethnopsy­chi­a­trie wird in vier Teilen ver­suchen, die Geschichte und Prax­is der Ther­a­pie von Ange­höri­gen ein­er anderen Kul­tur zu erläutern und deut­lich zu machen, dass die Aus­bil­dung von kul­tursen­si­blen Therapeut:innen drin­gend geboten ist. Dies ist nicht nur eine Forderung, die sich aus dem Gebot der Men­schlichkeit ergibt, son­dern eine poli­tis­che Notwendigkeit, um Radikalisierun­gen und mehr Gewalt als Folge von erlit­te­nen Trau­ma­ta zu verhindern.

Die Vor­tra­gen­den sind Prof. Dr. Nor­bert Finzsch, Sig­mund Freud Pri­vatU­ni­ver­sität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kluge, Lei­t­erin des Zen­trums für Interkul­turelle Psy­chi­a­trie und Psy­chother­a­pie and der Char­ité Berlin, Gert Levy, langjähriger Psy­chother­a­peut auf dem Gebi­et interkul­tureller Ther­a­pie, und Roz­erin Baysöz Kind, Dok­torandin der Psy­chother­a­piewis­senschaft an der Sig­mund Freud Pri­vatU­ni­ver­sität Berlin.

Eine Anmel­dung ist über die jew­eili­gen Links auf den Seit­en möglich:

„Er ver­ste­ht mich nicht“ – Wenn geflüchtete Kinder in der Psy­chother­a­pie nicht ankommen
Roz­erin Baysöz Kind
Mittwoch, 14. Jan­u­ar 2026, 19 Uhr
Unter den Lin­den 8, Theodor-Fontane-Saal

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VORTRAGSREIHE DES INSTITUTS FÜR GESCHICHTE UND ETHIK DER MEDIZIN HEIDELBERG IM WINTERSEMESTER 2025/2026
Pro­fes­sion­al­ität und pro­fes­sionelle Hal­tung in der Medi­zin: His­torische und ethis­che Perspektiven

Was macht gute Ärztin­nen und Ärzte aus? Dem Ide­al nach erschöpft sich Pro­fes­sion­al­ität nicht in fach­lich­er Exzel­lenz, son­dern umfasst Hal­tung, Selb­stre­flex­ion und einen part­ner­schaftlichen Umgang mit Patient:innen. Die Vor­tragsrei­he beleuchtet diese Fra­gen aus eth­nol­o­gis­ch­er, his­torisch­er und medi­zinis­ch­er Per­spek­tive. Die Beiträge zeigen, wie vielfältig und zugle­ich her­aus­fordernd Pro­fes­sion­al­ität ver­standen wer­den kann: Sei es im Prozess der Iden­tität­sen­twick­lung von Studieren­den, im Umgang mit dem toten Kör­p­er im Prä­pari­erkurs, in der Zusam­me­nar­beit mit Genesungsbegleiter:innen in der Psy­chi­a­trie oder in den Patien­ten­bildern des 20. Jahrhun­derts. Ger­ade die his­torischen Beispiele verdeut­lichen, dass Vorstel­lun­gen ärztlich­er Pro­fes­sion­al­ität und Leit­bilder keineswegs uni­versell gültig sind, son­dern in hohem Maße kontin­gent und dem gesellschaftlichen Wan­del unter­wor­fen. Damit rückt die Rei­he die Verän­der­barkeit und Vielschichtigkeit pro­fes­sioneller Hal­tung in den Mit­telpunkt: Pro­fes­sion­al­ität erscheint nicht als fest­gelegtes Ide­al, son­dern als Aushand­lung­sprozess zwis­chen Wis­senschaft und Erfahrung, zwis­chen Nähe und Dis­tanz, zwis­chen den Erwartun­gen von Patient:innen und den Selb­st­bildern der Ärzt:innen. Sie lädt dazu ein, die Medi­zin als ein Feld zu ver­ste­hen, das sich ständig neu erfind­et – im Span­nungs­feld von Geschichte, Ethik und Gegenwart.

Online per Zoom: https://eu02web.zoom‑x.de/j/68528452549?pwd=aEJvZHlTT01PQ0NFVlRkY09jSVFHZz09.

Pro­gramm

10.02.2026 / 18.15 Uhr
Vom Men­schen­ma­te­r­i­al zum mündi­gen Patient? Patien­ten­bilder im Kon­text der (De)Professionalisierung der Ärzteschaft im lan­gen 20. Jahrhundert
Dr. Christoph Schwamm
Insti­tut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medi­zin, Uni­ver­sität Heidelberg

Down­load Fly­er: https://t1p.de/xq4fc
Kontakt

Insti­tut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin
Ruprecht-Karls-Uni­ver­sität Heidelberg
Im Neuen­heimer Feld 327
69120 Heidelberg

Tele­fon: 06221 54–8212
E‑Mail: christoph.schwamm@histmed.uni-heidelberg.de

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