Veranstaltungen

Veranstaltungskalender

An dieser Stelle präsentieren wir ausgewählte Veranstaltungen aus dem interdisziplinären Arbeitsfeld Ethnologie und Medizin.

Wir freuen uns über Veranstaltungshinweise an events@agem.de

23. Mrz – 24. Mrz 2023

Feldforschung in der Medizin: Mehrwert und Herausforderungen ethnografischer Zugänge zu Gesundheit

Kon­ferenz

Tagung an der Uni­ver­sität Augsburg

Wie frag­il sich Feldzugänge für Gesundheitsforscher*innen häu­fig gestal­ten, hat die Covid-19-Pan­demie auch und ger­ade im Hin­blick auf ethno­grafis­che Forschung in medi­zinis­chen Set­tings gezeigt. Doch nicht nur Lock­downs und ver­schärfte Besucher*innenregelungen kön­nen Feld­forschung in der Medi­zin bee­in­flussen, erschw­eren oder unter Umstän­den sog­ar verun­möglichen. Medi­zinis­che Insti­tu­tio­nen erweisen sich häu­fig als stark regle­men­tierte Orte, die nicht unbe­d­ingt ein­fach ethno­grafisch zu erforschen sind. Dies zeigt sich beispiel­sweise an aus­geprägten (Wissens-)Hierarchien, spez­i­fis­chen Hygien­evorschriften oder regulierten(Fach-)Kompetenzen, die eine wirk­lich teil­nehmende Beobach­tung beein­trächti­gen kön­nen. Zudem kom­men Ethikkom­mis­sio­nen und beson­ders strenge Daten­schutzregelun­gen zum Schutz vul­ner­a­bler Grup­pen eine beson­dere Rolle im Gesund­heitssek­tor zu, wodurch die Feld­forschung sich hier möglicher­weise anders gestal­tet als in anderen Kon­tex­ten. Neben diesen feld­spez­i­fis­chen Hür­den wer­den auch immer wieder »klas­sis­che« Prob­leme und Grund­satzfra­gen ethno­grafis­ch­er Forschung evi­dent: Wann und wie steige ich am besten
in mein Feld ein – und wieder aus? Welchen Logiken fol­gt mein Feld – und wem folge ich? Und welche Rolle(n) kann, darf und will ich in welchem Set­ting ein­nehmen? Ethno­grafis­che Zugänge zu Gesund­heit sind in diversen Diszi­plinen von großer Beliebtheit, kön­nen aber auch beson­ders her­aus­fordernd sein. Diese Tagung möchte ins­beson­dere Wissenschaftler*innen in der »frühen Phase« ihrer Kar­riere zum Aus­tausch über ihre Erfahrun­gen als Forschende im Gesund­heitswe­sen ermuti­gen. Wir möcht­en Raum bieten für das Sprechen über das Scheit­ern, über Umge­hungs- und Lösungsstrate­gien, über Mod­i­fika­tio­nen. Wir inter­essieren uns für Eure Geschicht­en aus der Prax­is, über Euer Kopfzer­brechen am Schreibtisch, für Eure Reflex­io­nen über Eure Rolle im Feld. Das über­ge­ord­nete Ziel dieser Tagung ist es, Forscher*innen aus diversen Diszi­plinen, die sich mit den gesellschaftlichen Aspek­ten von Krankheit und Gesund­heit befassen, zusam­men­zubrin­gen, um über ihre Forschung in ver­schiede­nen medi­zinis­chen Feldern und über unter­schiedlich­ste Akteur*innen sowie Beruf­s­grup­pen im Gesund­heitssys­tem gemein­sam (method­ol­o­gisch) zu diskutieren.

Von Inter­esse kön­nten fol­gende Fra­gen sein:
Was bedeutet es, Insider*in/Outsider*in zu sein im Kon­text medi­zinis­ch­er Forschung?
Wie wichtig ist eigenes Erfahrungswis­sen, z.B. im Gespräch mit Patient*innen?
Welche Umgangsweisen helfen bei der Dis­tanzierung (und Befrem­dung) im Feld, und wie geht man mit möglichen eige­nen (medizinischen/pflegerischen) Fachkom­pe­ten­zen um?
Inwiefern unter­schei­den sich der Lai*innen- und Expert*innen-Status im Hin­blick auf Krankheit/Gesundheit im Ver­gle­ich zu anderen Feldern?
Welche autoethno­grafis­chen Per­spek­tiv­en brin­gen wir als (pri­vate) Mit­glieder des Gesund­heitssys­tems mit – und ein?
Wie kön­nen ethno­grafis­che Zugänge zu einem ver­tieften Ver­ständ­nis der zunehmenden Dig­i­tal­isierung, Tech­nol­o­gisierung und Per­son­al­isierung des Gesund­heitssys­tems beitragen?
Welche Rolle spie­len Materialität(en) und Körperlichkeit(en)?
Wie sind sie zu begreifen und zu gewicht­en in einem Feld, in dem der Kör­p­er häu­fig als Dreh- und Angelpunkt fungiert?

Ger­ahmt wird der Aus­tausch durch Keynotes von Prof. Dr. Mile­na Bis­ter (HU Berlin) und Prof. Dr. Cor­nelius Schu­bert (TU Dort­mund). In Euren Vorträ­gen soll es allerd­ings weniger um das große Ganze gehen. Um den Mehrw­ert, aber auch die Her­aus­forderun­gen ethno­grafis­ch­er Feld­forschung im Gesund­heitswe­sen exem­plar­isch darzustellen, wür­den wir Euch bit­ten, Eure Beiträge eher inputo­ri­en­tiert zu konzip­ieren und einen Prob­le­maufriss zu skizzieren oder eine  Lösungsstrate­gie nachzuze­ich­nen; der Schw­er­punkt soll primär auf der gemein­samen Diskus­sion liegen.
Bitte schickt Euer Abstract (ca. 350 Wörter) bis zum 1. Dezem­ber 2022 an Ann Kristin Augst (ann.kristin.augst@uni‑a.de) und Bian­ca Jan­sky (bianca.jansky@uni‑a.de).

Pro­gramm

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11. Apr – 14. Apr 2023

Capitalism, Labour and Being ‘Unwell’: Workers in and Beyond Toxic Embodiments

Pan­el

Pan­el at the ASA 2023 con­fer­ence „An Unwell World? Anthro­pol­o­gy in a Spec­u­la­tive Mode” at the Uni­ver­si­ty of London

Camelia Dewan (Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo)

Rebec­ca Pren­tice (Uni­ver­si­ty of Sussex)

This pan­el explores the rela­tion­ship between labour and health in indus­tries where the lin­ger­ing effects of ill-health – invis­i­ble haz­ardous expo­sure or the sus­tained impact of toil on work­ers’ men­tal and phys­i­cal well­be­ing – extend far beyond place-based bound­aries of employ­ment and their bureau­crat­ic imag­i­nar­ies. We call for papers that exam­ine the embod­i­ment of labour – focus­ing on affec­tive and phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal accounts of the work­ing body-as-lived – and the­o­rise being ‘unwell’ in rela­tion to the spa­tial and tem­po­ral pol­i­tics of labour. In much of the world, the expe­ri­ence of labour today involves the cross­ing or dis­so­lu­tion of bound­aries: pre­car­i­ous and infor­mal labour arrange­ments, work­ing from home and cross­ing of public/private bound­aries as well as work­ing in con­di­tions where haz­ardous mate­ri­als and invis­i­ble pathogens pol­lute the very air we inhale. Work­ing bod­ies car­ry with them the ill-effects of adverse labour con­di­tions long after the work day, as these seep as well into com­mu­ni­ties. The effects of these are uneven­ly dis­trib­uted, as are the care bur­dens and labour of repair required in com­mu­ni­ties that are often shaped by state- and cap­i­tal-led crises of social repro­duc­tion. Our focus on the bound­ary-cross­ing nature of work­ing con­di­tions today invites new reflec­tions on per­me­abil­i­ty as a gen­er­a­tive site for con­sid­er­ing new pos­si­bil­i­ties for labour pol­i­tics. How can attend­ing to the bound­ary cross­ings of unwell­ness help us the­o­rise alter­nate pos­si­bil­i­ties root­ed in resis­tance, care, and worldmaking?

We invite papers that explore labour and health in indus­tries where ill-health extends far beyond place-based bound­aries of employ­ment and their bureau­crat­ic imag­i­nar­ies. How can bound­ary cross­ings of unwell­ness help us the­o­rise alter­nate pos­si­bil­i­ties root­ed in resis­tance and worldmaking?

To pro­pose a paper:

Pro­pos­als can be made via the ASA web­site until Jan­u­ary 3rd 2023. Pro­pos­als should include a paper title, the name and address­es of author(s), a long abstract of 250 words, and a short abstract of 300 char­ac­ters. On sub­mis­sion of the pro­pos­al, the author(s) will receive an auto­mat­ed email con­firm­ing receipt (make sure this is received to con­firm sub­mis­sion), and a deci­sion from the pan­el organ­is­ers will be made soon after Jan­u­ary 3rd.

Though pro­pos­als must be made through the ASA sys­tem, the pan­el organ­is­ers are hap­py to answer ques­tions via email: camelia.dewan@sai.uio.no or r.j.prentice@sussex.ac.uk

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11. Apr – 14. Apr 2023

Creating well-being: biosocial approaches to practices of making well

Pan­el

Pan­el at the ASA 2023 con­fer­ence „An Unwell World? Anthro­pol­o­gy in a Spec­u­la­tive Mode” at the Uni­ver­si­ty of London

Short Abstract:
This pan­el is con­cerned with how peo­ple in diverse con­texts ‚make well’ as a bioso­cial phe­nom­e­non. If cre­ativ­i­ty is ‘a poet­ics of mak­ing’, what are peo­ple hop­ing to cre­ate in gen­er­at­ing well-being, how do they go about it and what are the effects on the health of bod­ies and society?
 
Long Abstract:

In their explo­ration of what ‘life is worth’, Mars­land and Prince (2012) con­tend that anthro­pol­o­gists’ ten­den­cy to focus on the dystopic – on vio­lence, suf­fer­ing, depri­va­tion, des­ti­tu­tion and bare life – comes at the expense of begin­ning with people’s every­day sit­u­at­ed con­cerns. Con­verse­ly, ‘an anthro­pol­o­gy of hope’ (Corsin-Jimenez, 2008) can point us in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion towards how peo­ple cre­ate what Thin (2008) calls ‘nor­mal hap­pi­ness’ or the con­di­tion of being well, despite ever-threat­en­ing sources of harm and mis­ery. This pan­el seeks con­tri­bu­tions that explore the notion of well-being as a bioso­cial phe­nom­e­non. It asks how we can fruit­ful­ly access, mea­sure, analyse and grasp how peo­ple make lives with worth and the effect this has on their health. If cre­ativ­i­ty is ‘a poet­ics of mak­ing’ (McLean, 2009), what are peo­ple in a vari­ety of con­texts hop­ing to cre­ate in the gen­er­a­tion of well-being, how do they go about mak­ing these hopes mate­ri­al­ize and what are the effects of these dif­fer­ent poet­ics of mak­ing on bod­ies and soci­ety? In par­tic­u­lar, we invite papers that engage with the role of phe­nom­e­na such as fun, joy, play, cre­ativ­i­ty, imag­i­na­tion, exper­i­men­ta­tion and resource­ful­ness in gen­er­at­ing well-being and/or that con­sid­er how bioso­cial anthro­pol­o­gy might method­olog­i­cal­ly account for the role of well-being prac­tices on health.

Please do get in touch if you have any ques­tions about the panel.
Regards,

 

Dalia Iskan­der

Head of Med­ical Anthropology

Lec­tur­er (Teach­ing) in Med­ical Anthropology

UCL Depart­ment of Anthropology

14 Tavi­ton Street | Lon­don | WC1H 0BW

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11. Apr – 14. Apr 2023

Is all well with birth? Anthropological contributions to reproductive and maternal health systems

Pan­el

Pan­el at the ASA 2023 con­fer­ence „An unwell world? Anthro­pol­o­gy in a spec­u­la­tive mode” in London

 

Short Abstract:

This pan­el con­sid­ers how “all is not well with birth” (Chad­wick, 2018), wel­com­ing insights from across repro­duc­tive and mater­nal health. We invite pan­el­lists to re-envi­sion care worlds and spec­u­late how anthro­pol­o­gy can con­tribute to the pro­vi­sion of equi­table and respect­ful health systems.

Long Abstract:

“All is not well with birth” (Chad­wick, 2018). Despite the wide­spread improve­ments in mater­ni­ty ser­vices, glob­al and local inequal­i­ties in care and out­comes per­sist, and dis­pro­por­tion­ate rates of mater­nal and infant mor­tal­i­ty cut along racial, eco­nom­ic and geo­graph­i­cal lines. The WHO named 2020 ‘Year of the Nurse and Mid­wife,’ recog­nis­ing mid­wives’ piv­otal role in pub­lic health, yet the same year the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic upend­ed repro­duc­tive and mater­ni­ty ser­vices, leav­ing many women and birthing peo­ple with­out essen­tial ante­na­tal, birth and post­na­tal care. Repro­duc­tive rights, obstet­ric vio­lence and birth trau­ma are press­ing issues, while rates of cae­sare­an sec­tions and obstet­ric inter­ven­tions con­tin­ue to rise around the world. The chal­lenges and strug­gles relat­ed to ‘pol­i­tics of repro­duc­tion’ (Gins­burg and Rapp, 1991) have nev­er been more fraught and urgent.

This pan­el con­sid­ers the state of birth but also wel­comes insights from schol­ars work­ing across repro­duc­tive and mater­nal health. We recog­nise that expe­ri­ences and pro­vi­sion of ser­vices often hang togeth­er on a ‘con­tin­u­um of care’, involv­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with “all rel­e­vant health care edu­ca­tions, providers, insti­tu­tions and orga­ni­za­tions” includ­ing tra­di­tion­al care­givers, birth atten­dants and mid­wives (Davis-Floyd, 2022). Anthro­pol­o­gists have held a promi­nent role in cri­tiquing bio­med­ical ways of know­ing and doing birth, and recent work sug­gests more hope­ful visions of care, sit­u­at­ed in life-affirm­ing prac­tices pri­ori­tis­ing cul­tur­al safe­ty and well-being. In look­ing for solu­tions, we invite pan­el­lists to re-envi­sion care worlds and spec­u­late on how anthro­pol­o­gy can be a source con­tribut­ing to the pro­vi­sion equi­table, respect­ful and sus­tain­able repro­duc­tive and mater­ni­ty care for all.

Call for papers clos­es on 7 Jan­u­ary 2023. 

https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/asa2023/p/12870

 

Best wish­es, 

Cas­san­dra and Chiara

Perma­link

11. Apr – 14. Apr 2023

The human social in psychiatric practice

Pan­el

Pan­el at the ASA 2023 con­fer­ence „An unwell world? Anthro­pol­o­gy in a spec­u­la­tive mode” in London

Please note that this call for papers clos­es on 3rd Jan­u­ary 2023.

Con­venors: Liana Chase (Durham Uni­ver­si­ty) and David Mosse (SOAS)

 

Short abstract

This pan­el explores some of the ten­sions inher­ent in efforts to har­ness the ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits of human social­i­ty with­in men­tal health­care sys­tems. It invites ethno­graph­ic work on mod­els of care that empha­size human con­nec­tion over psy­chi­atric exper­tise (e.g., lay coun­selling, peer support).

 

Long abstract

Uncer­tain­ty over the med­ical mod­el of men­tal ill­ness con­tin­ues to grow, includ­ing scep­ti­cism that dis­tress is best han­dled by med­ical experts through the treat­ment of dis­crete diag­nos­able dis­or­ders. The impor­tance of the qual­i­ty of ther­a­peu­tic rela­tion­ships in explain­ing out­comes is increas­ing­ly well estab­lished, sup­port­ing mod­els of care that give pri­ma­cy to fos­ter­ing human con­nec­tion with­in – and beyond – the clin­i­cal set­ting. In recent years, this recog­ni­tion of rela­tion­ships as an ‘active ingre­di­ent’ in men­tal health treat­ment has inter­sect­ed with glob­al short­ages of trained clin­i­cians to open up more space for ’non-med­ical’ and ’non-pro­fes­sion­al’ inter­ac­tions with­in care deliv­ery. In the Glob­al North, this has involved the intro­duc­tion of peer and lay roles as well as (re)training clin­i­cians to cul­ti­vate more mind­ful, empa­thet­ic, and ‘human’ rela­tion­ships with clients. The Glob­al South has seen a pro­lif­er­a­tion of inter­ven­tions rely­ing on lay coun­sel­lors and com­mu­ni­ty work­ers, whose social embed­ded­ness with­in the neigh­bour­hoods they serve is rec­og­nized as a ther­a­peu­tic asset.

 

This pan­el explores some of the ten­sions inher­ent in efforts to har­ness the ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits of human social­i­ty with­in men­tal health­care sys­tems, con­sid­er­ing the ways the ‚human’ and the ‚clin­i­cal’ come to be defined in rela­tion and jux­ta­po­si­tion to one anoth­er. How does the oper­a­tional­iza­tion of rela­tion­ships as ther­a­peu­tic tools with mea­sur­able out­comes alter the terms and qual­i­ties of relat­ed­ness? What cod­i­fied rules come to bear on such rela­tion­ships, and how do these inter­act with every­day social norms? What rela­tion­al ethics is implied, and what kinds of moral lab­o­ra­to­ries are brought into being?

 

https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/asa2023/p/12694

Dr Liana E. Chase (she/her)

Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy, Durham University

Co-Inves­ti­ga­tor, Trans­for­ma­tion in Men­tal Health­care: An Anthro­po­log­i­cal Study of Sup­port­ed Open Dia­logue (http://anthropology-opendialogue.org/)

 

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27. Apr – 30. Apr 2023

Ecologies of Mind

Kon­ferenz

Bien­ni­al Meet­ing of the Soci­ety of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Anthro­pol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego, CA

Please find the fol­low­ing CFP for the upcom­ing SPA Bien­ni­al Meeting.

SPA Bien­ni­al Meeting
https://www.sandiego.edu/scheduling/venues/kroc-facilities/rooms.php
Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego
San Diego, CA; April 27–30, 2023

Call for Papers: Ecolo­gies of Mind

Psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy is root­ed in recog­ni­tion of the social con­sti­tu­tion of mind, self and per­son. Gre­go­ry Bateson’s con­cept of an ecol­o­gy of mind point­ed to ways of think­ing about mind as sit­u­at­ed in both inter­per­son­al and larg­er social sys­tems. This eco­log­i­cal per­spec­tive pro­vides a shared geneal­o­gy and bridge between the con­cerns of psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy and con­tem­po­rary approach­es in cog­ni­tive sci­ence, which see human expe­ri­ence as emerg­ing from embod­ied, enact­ed, embed­ded and extend­ed social processes.

The recog­ni­tion that human psy­chol­o­gy has its own ecol­o­gy and dynam­ics that depend on local nich­es and net­works as well as on wider social sys­tems is urgent­ly need­ed to help us address the most press­ing chal­lenges of our time: cli­mate change and eco­cide; sys­temic racism and struc­tur­al vio­lence; social polar­iza­tion and the ero­sion of trust in civ­il soci­ety and demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions; and the col­o­niza­tion of imag­i­na­tion and epis­temic chaos cre­at­ed by com­mer­cial and polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion of social media.

This meet­ing will explore ecolo­gies of mind in diverse domains and at mul­ti­ple scales from local com­mu­ni­ties to plan­e­tary net­works, from embod­ied real­i­ties to vir­tu­al worlds. We invite papers and pre­sen­ta­tions that engage with the endur­ing ques­tions of psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy and cur­rent social, polit­i­cal, and exis­ten­tial predica­ments. We espe­cial­ly encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary work that bridges anthro­pol­o­gy, psy­chol­o­gy, psy­chi­a­try, and allied dis­ci­plines to explore the dynam­ics of healthy and patho­log­i­cal ecolo­gies of mind.

The 2023 SPA meet­ing will include a joint con­fer­ence day with the Soci­ety for the Study of Psy­chi­a­try and Cul­ture (SSPC), an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary group devot­ed to clin­i­cal issues in cul­ture and men­tal health. Long await­ed by both soci­eties, this day of over­lap is aimed at fos­ter­ing cross-dis­ci­pline engage­ment. This joint day will allow SPA mem­bers, researchers, and prac­ti­tion­ers to dis­cuss cross-cut­ting inter­ests and the under­pin­nings and con­se­quences of social expe­ri­ence for men­tal health, psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, and heal­ing. The over­all theme of the SSPC meet­ing will be “Prac­tices that Harm/Practices that Heal.” For the joint day, we are espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in show­cas­ing work in psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy and cul­tur­al psy­chi­a­try that address­es issues of heal­ing and transformation.

Reg­is­tra­tion:
The reg­is­tra­tion por­tal will go live in the next cou­ple of weeks. Please watch for the announcement!

Abstract Sub­mis­sion:
The Abstract Sub­mis­sion por­tal will open in ear­ly Jan­u­ary and close in late Jan­u­ary. Please watch for that announce­ment as well. **In light of the rel­a­tive­ly short win­dow for sub­mis­sions, we rec­om­mend prepar­ing your abstracts in advance!**

Rebec­ca Selig­man, PhD
Asso­ciate Chair, Depart­ment of Anthropology
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Anthro­pol­o­gy and Glob­al Health
Fac­ul­ty Fel­low, Insti­tute for Pol­i­cy Research
North­west­ern University
https://www.anthropology.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/seligman.html
Book: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137409591
With respect and grat­i­tude I acknowl­edge that I live and work on the lands of the 3 Fires–Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi.

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27. Apr – 30. Apr 2023

In the Frictions. Fragments of Care, Health, and Wellbeing in the Balkans

Kon­ferenz

Con­fer­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Zadar, Croa­t­ia orga­nized by the Depart­ment of Eth­nol­o­gy and Anthro­pol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Zadar, Croa­t­ia and the Insti­tute for Phi­los­o­phy and Social The­o­ry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Bel­grade, Serbia

Care has been broad­ly defined as “every­thing that we do to main­tain, con­tin­ue, and repair our ‚world’ so that we can live in it as well as pos­si­ble” (Fish­er and Tron­to 1991, p. 40). Com­plex rela­tions of care sus­tain our lives and are nec­es­sary not only for the sur­vival of humans and non­hu­mans alike, but also for their flour­ish­ing. Struc­tured through var­i­ous mech­a­nisms and insti­tu­tions, from kin­ships to states, care pro­duces var­i­ous forms of inti­ma­cy and relatedness.

In the wake of the Covid 19 pan­dem­ic, there has been a resur­gence of inter­est in care, health, and well­be­ing across var­i­ous dis­ci­plines. We are inter­est­ed in how anthro­pol­o­gy has respond­ed to the urgent changes in the field of care and in iden­ti­fy­ing the after­math of Covid-19 and post-Covid-19 real­i­ties in the Balkans.

We rec­og­nize, how­ev­er, that the pan­dem­ic has been only one of the most recent dis­rup­tions in rela­tions of care and acknowl­edge that the real-world pro­grams of neolib­er­al restruc­tur­ing are not lin­ear paths that con­verge but are forged in fric­tions of sit­u­at­ed encoun­ters with ear­li­er social and cul­tur­al land­scapes. While the term „Balka­ns” is fraught with ambiva­lent mean­ings and asso­ci­a­tions, this con­fer­ence aims to move away from Balka­nism (Todor­o­va, 2009) and dichoto­mous frame­works to rethink the Balka­ns as a site of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion that has more to offer than just “catch­ing up” with the West. What the­o­ret­i­cal and method­olog­i­cal issues do anthro­pol­o­gists face in their research in the Balka­ns? How do peo­ple in the Balka­ns relate to one anoth­er with­in car­ing rela­tion­ships them­selves? What does care look like in prac­tice and what does it entail? How are car­ing rela­tion­ships shaped and changed? How do these expe­ri­ences and rela­tion­ships inform or chal­lenge broad­er the­o­ret­i­cal concerns?

We see this con­fer­ence as a step towards build­ing a net­work of anthro­pol­o­gists work­ing on the issues of care in SEE. Pos­si­ble top­ics include but are not lim­it­ed to:

Struc­tur­al vio­lence and care;

Gen­der­ing care;

Racial­iz­ing care;

Sol­i­dar­i­ty and care;

Nar­ra­tives of (health)care;

Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and care;

Pub­lic and pri­vate health/care;

Human­i­tar­i­an­ism and care;

Care and the commons;

Ecol­o­gy, ecofem­i­nist care;

Care and social class

Care and mobility

Care and the economy

Care and the state

We invite sub­mis­sions for pre­sen­ta­tions of up to 15 min­utes. Please send pro­pos­als of no more than 300 words and a brief bio­graph­i­cal note (100 words) tointhefrictions@gmail.com by Octo­ber 15th, 2022. All appli­cants will be noti­fied of their sub­mis­sion sta­tus with­in four weeks of the appli­ca­tion deadline.

Appli­ca­tions should be sent in a sin­gle Word doc­u­ment. The file name should include the author’s name. The appli­ca­tion should include:

* an abstract (max. 300 words)

* a short bio­graph­i­cal note includ­ing your insti­tu­tion­al affil­i­a­tion, con­tact infor­ma­tion, and major pub­li­ca­tions (100 words)

The con­fer­ence will be held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Zadar, Croa­t­ia between the 27and30 April 2023.

For addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Jele­na Kup­s­jak at jelena.kupsjak@gmail.com or Ljil­jana Pan­tović at ljiljana.pantovic@gmail.com.

 

Con­fer­ence fees (which will cov­er a con­fer­ence pack­age, cof­fee breaks and a wel­come recep­tion) are:

70 Euros for post-doc­tor­ate schol­ars who are attached to insti­tu­tions out­side of the Balkans

60 Euros for post-doc­tor­ate schol­ars who are attached to insti­tu­tions in the Balkans

50 Euros for PhD stu­dents who are attached to insti­tu­tions out­side of Balkans

40 Euros for PhD stu­dents who are attached to insti­tu­tions from the Balkans

 

*We have applied for fund­ing to cov­er expens­es of trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion for young schol­ars par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­fer­ence. Should we receive the fund­ing these par­tic­i­pants will be able to apply for a trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion grant.

**Deci­sions about trav­el grant allo­ca­tion will be made based on self-report­ed insti­tu­tion­al sta­tus and income. Upon selec­tion of par­tic­i­pants, we will issue an instruc­tion on how to apply for the grant.

Perma­link

08. Mai – 10. Mai 2023

Hope, Hype and Lowering Expectations in the Life Science Industry

Pan­el

Pan­el at the 21th Annu­al STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2023 „Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies“ 

Dead­line: 30.01.2023
More infor­ma­tion about abstract sub­mis­sion https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/
Feel free to get in con­tact if you have any ques­tions (isabelbriz@link.cuhk.edu.hk)
Best wish­es, 
Isabel Briz Hernández 
G.1 Hope, Hype and Low­er­ing Expec­ta­tions in the Life Sci­ence Industry

Orga­niz­er: Isabel Briz Her­nan­dez, The Chi­nese Uni­ver­si­ty of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 

Much has been said about hope and sci­ence. Since the emer­gence of biotech­nol­o­gy and its promis­es of a not-dis­tant-future in which the advances at the bench will quick­ly trav­el to the care at the bed­side, schol­ars in sci­ence stud­ies have warned about the hype around biotech and the deceiv­ing illu­sion that it cre­ates in patients at their most vul­ner­a­ble moment, at the edge of life (Good 2007; Rose and Novas 2005). It has been wide­ly por­trayed how hope is cap­i­tal­ized by biotech com­pa­nies and nation-states, turn­ing the expec­ta­tions of patients and their fam­i­lies into an eco­nom­ic prof­it (Novas 2006; Sun­der Rajan 2005, 2006, 2010; Wald­by 2000). Oth­ers have urged us to look at how the idea of poten­tial­i­ty has impreg­nat­ed life sci­ence and bio­med­i­cine in the last decades (Taus­sig, Hoey­er, and Helm­re­ich 2013). Yet, an emerg­ing schol­ar­ship is also point­ing to how this hype is “recal­i­brat­ed” on the ground (Gard­ner, Samuel, Williams 2015) and how high and low expec­ta­tions are inter­twined (Pick­ers­gill 2011, Fitzger­ald 2014, Swal­low et al. 2020, Day et al. 2021)

This pan­el draws on the “Soci­ol­o­gy of Low Expec­ta­tions” (Gard­ner, Samuel, Williams 2015) and invites papers that reflect on how doubt and uncer­tain­ty are present in promis­so­ry tech­nolo­gies in the life sci­ence indus­try such as gene and cell ther­a­py, stem cell, immunother­a­py or per­son­al­ized med­i­cine in gen­er­al. In addi­tion to the per­for­mance of the “promis­so­ry rhetorics” (Borup et al., 2006; Brown, 2015), this pan­el seeks to ana­lyze ethno­graph­ic moments in which hype is con­test­ed, and yet those prac­tices are con­sti­tu­tive of technoscience.

Perma­link

23. Mai – 24. Mai 2023

Global fat resources: Connecting themes, approaches and narratives, ca. 1850–2022

Kon­ferenz

Con­fer­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen

Dead­line for pro­pos­als: 8 Jan­u­ary 2023

Glob­al resources have become a hot top­ic in many his­tor­i­cal dis­ci­plines. Soci­eties and economies around the globe have become increas­ing­ly depen­dent on the import and export of ener­gy resources, met­als, agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts and oth­er com­modi­ties. The exploita­tion of glob­al resources cre­at­ed wealth, trig­gered inno­va­tion and, on the oth­er, side led to tremen­dous social and envi­ron­men­tal costs. In addi­tion, resource exploita­tion and trade meant new depen­den­cies and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties across the globe, increas­ing com­pe­ti­tion for glob­al resources and volatile com­mod­i­ty prices. Glob­al resources rep­re­sent a sub­ject con­nect­ing major soci­etal chal­lenges such as resource secu­ri­ty, glob­al jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate change.

This work­shop aims at facil­i­tat­ing and build­ing con­nec­tions between dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal themes, approach­es, nar­ra­tives and dis­ci­plines in the inves­ti­ga­tion of glob­al resources since the mid-19th cen­tu­ry until today, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on fat resources. Build­ing con­nec­tions com­pris­es the chal­lenge of con­nect­ing themes and sub­jects such as spaces in the Glob­al South and in the Glob­al North, pow­er rela­tions across large dis­tances, colo­nial vio­lence and indige­nous agency, resource exploita­tion and social and envi­ron­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion, resource secu­ri­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, etc. Such the­mat­ic con­nec­tions suf­fer from enor­mous imbal­ances and bias, e.g. through the over­whelm­ing pre­dom­i­nance of his­to­ri­ans and sources from the Glob­al North and the chal­leng­ing dearth of indige­nous and envi­ron­men­tal sources and perspectives.

Build­ing con­nec­tions like­wise means cross­ing dis­ci­pli­nary bound­aries and link­ing con­cepts and approach­es for the inves­ti­ga­tion of glob­al resources that have been devel­oped in his­tor­i­cal dis­ci­plines such as glob­al his­to­ry, envi­ron­men­tal his­to­ry, colo­nial his­to­ry, com­mod­i­ty his­to­ry, his­to­ry of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy and eco­nom­ic his­to­ry. The work­shop encour­ages dis­cus­sion, which (dif­fer­ent) ques­tions researchers ask, which con­cepts and approach­es they use, which lit­er­a­tures and sources they con­sid­er, which inter­pre­ta­tions and nar­ra­tives they con­struct and with which prob­lems they strug­gle. It is a major goal to fer­til­ize con­nec­tions and future cross-dis­ci­pli­nary research per­spec­tives and approach­es for the devel­op­ment of future research projects on glob­al resources.

Glob­al fat com­pris­es all kinds of edi­ble fat and (non-fos­sil) oil resources rang­ing from oil seeds such as soy­beans, palm fruits, coconuts and oth­ers to var­i­ous types of ani­mal fats rang­ing from whale oil to cat­tle feed oils. Indus­tries in the Glob­al North became depen­dent on fat resources from the Glob­al South dur­ing the late 19th and 20th cen­turies. While colo­nial ven­tures, trade impe­ri­al­ism and the accel­er­at­ing glob­al­iza­tion of post­colo­nial fat trade gen­er­at­ed tremen­dous prof­its pri­mar­i­ly in the Glob­al North, it made trop­i­cal coun­tries fate­ful­ly depen­dent on the exploita­tion of their nat­ur­al resources and became a dri­ving force of accel­er­at­ing defor­esta­tion and social and envi­ron­men­tal dis­rup­tion and change.

We invite pro­pos­als on glob­al resource con­nec­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly on glob­al fat, includ­ing a short abstract (ca. 300 words) and a one page CV until 8 Jan­u­ary 2023. Please send your pro­pos­al to the fol­low­ing address: matthias.heymann@css.au.dk. The work­shop is open to all researchers of rel­e­vant dis­ci­plines. Trav­el sup­port will be avail­able for par­tic­i­pants with­out own fund­ing. If you need trav­el sup­port, please note so on your pro­pos­al and give an approx­i­mate esti­mate of the expect­ed trav­el expens­es. This work­shop is part of the Ten­sions of Europe Research Group Tech­nol­o­gy, Envi­ron­ment and Resources, fund­ed by the research net­work “Chal­leng­ing Europe: Tech­nol­o­gy, Envi­ron­ment and the Quest for Resource Secu­ri­ty” (Eur­ReS) and will be orga­nized by Ines Predöhl and Ele­na Kochetko­va (Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen) and Matthias Hey­mann (Aarhus University).

——————————————————–

Matthias Hey­mann

Cen­tre for Sci­ence Studies

Aarhus Uni­ver­si­ty

Ny Munkegade 118, Build­ing 1530

8000 Aarhus C

Den­mark

Phone: +45 87155646

Perma­link

24. Mai 2023

Cholera in the Indian Ocean World since the Nineteenth Century

Work­shop

Work­shop at the Insti­tute for Social Anthro­pol­o­gy (ISA), Aus­tri­an Acad­e­my of Sciences

Keynote: Pro­fes­sor Eric Tagli­a­coz­zo, Cor­nell University

Cholera—first described in the Ganges delta in 1817—spread glob­al­ly in sev­en pan­demics dur­ing the past two cen­turies. Most recent­ly, some 30 coun­tries world­wide report­ed cholera out­breaks in 2022 and a Lancet report from Octo­ber 2022 revealed an alarm­ing short­age of cholera vac­cines that result­ed in a shift from a two to a less last­ing one-dose vac­ci­na­tion strat­e­gy. In fact, the 7th pan­dem­ic of cholera—which first was iden­ti­fied in the med­ical sta­tion of El Tor among pil­grims return­ing from Mec­ca in the ear­ly 20th century—is ongo­ing. A dis­cus­sion of the scarci­ty in vac­cines, how­ev­er, was large­ly lim­it­ed to rel­e­vant health chan­nels and only some out­break hotspots (such as Haiti in 2010) made it into the inter­na­tion­al media and gained schol­ar­ly atten­tion beyond the med­ical and aid fields.

Cholera is an acute diar­rhoeal infec­tion caused by food or water con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with the bac­teri­um Vib­rio choler­ae. Left untreat­ed it might kill a per­son with­in hours. Despite the avail­abil­i­ty of a pro­phy­lac­tic Oral Cholera Vac­cine (OCV) since 1985, cholera still is a life-threat­en­ing dis­ease for the dis­ad­van­taged and the poor, rarely noticed in afflu­ent parts of the world. Main fac­tors that are con­ge­nial to the spread of cholera still include stressed water sup­plies, insan­i­tary hous­ing and the effects of envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters. These include in par­tic­u­lar earth­quakes, weath­er extremes and cer­tain hydro­log­i­cal events that are increas­ing­ly asso­ci­at­ed with cli­mate-change such as floods. Oth­er poten­tial­ly causal fac­tors are relat­ed to armed con­flict, under­re­port­ing of data on nation­al and local lev­els, the ongo­ing COVID-19 cri­sis and insuf­fi­cient­ly resourced nation­al health systems.

We take this alarm­ing sit­u­a­tion as an occa­sion to dis­cuss the V. choler­ae El Tor strain in both its his­toric dimen­sions and as a press­ing pub­lic health issue along two main method­olog­i­cal path­ways. First­ly, by trac­ing the his­tor­i­cal events of cholera in the lit­torals and inter­con­nect­ed hin­ter­lands of the Indi­an Ocean, known as the Indi­an Ocean World (IOW). The fac­tors con­duc­tive to the spread of V. cholera men­tioned above result­ed in recent out­breaks and pre­dis­pose coun­tries of the IOW to future out­breaks. We there­fore aim, sec­ond­ly, to bring new insight from the archives on IOW’s cholera his­to­ry in a fruit­ful dia­logue with the lived expe­ri­ences of recent and ongo­ing out­breaks in this region, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to the civ­il war-induced cholera in Yemen, more local­ized out­breaks in Kenya or the annu­al mon­soon­al out­breaks of endem­ic cholera serotypes in Bangladesh.

We invite con­tri­bu­tions that focus on cholera in the Indi­an Ocean World and help to shed new light

- on the eco­log­i­cal geog­ra­phy and the diverse cul­tur­al and his­toric per­cep­tions of dis­ease cau­sa­tion, trans­mis­sion and control;

- on the mul­ti­lay­ered inter­ac­tions between cholera out­breaks and non/human mobil­i­ties; whether assumed, blamed or evi­dence based;

- on the lived expe­ri­ences of suf­fer­ers, care givers and health care professionals.

Con­tri­bu­tions might have a rather schol­ar­ly or an applied char­ac­ter, draw­ing on archival stud­ies or on field work; they might be sit­u­at­ed inside or between med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy, med­ical his­to­ry, geog­ra­phy, IOW stud­ies, pub­lic health and allied fields or with­in the work expe­ri­ence by health pro­fes­sion­als and aid organizations.

As the ongo­ing COVID-19 cri­sis has upend­ed inter­na­tion­al trav­el, we intend to orga­nize the work­shop in a hybrid mode: both in a webi­nar for­mat as well as an in-per­son pre­sen­ta­tion at the Insti­tute for Social Anthro­pol­o­gy, Aus­tri­an Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in Vienna.

Please send an abstract of about 300 words and a short bio by Jan­u­ary 15, 2023 to
eva-maria.knoll@oeaw.ac.at and vivekneelakantanster@gmail.com

The work­shop Cholera in the Indi­an Ocean World since the Nine­teenth Cen­tu­ry is co-fund­ed by and con­tributes to the SSHRC Part­ner­ship Apprais­ing Risk.

Perma­link

31. Mai – 03. Jun 2023

Creating futures: Revisiting (the transformation of) care networks in African countries

Pan­el

Pan­el at the Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on African Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cologne

Short Abstract:

For­mal and infor­mal care net­works are increas­ing­ly emerg­ing in African coun­tries as a way of cre­at­ing sol­i­dar­i­ties and mak­ing futures. We ask what/who con­sti­tutes this future and for whom, how social net­works come to be imag­ined, con­sti­tut­ed, engaged, nego­ti­at­ed, and contested.

Long Abstract:

Social net­works are cru­cial in con­fronting cri­sis and secur­ing African futures. African coun­tries are wit­ness­ing a pro­lif­er­a­tion of dif­fer­ent forms of for­mal and infor­mal care net­works emerg­ing in the con­text of grow­ing health, eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal crises. Rang­ing from reli­gious and neigh­bor­hood net­works to self-help groups and pro­fes­sion­al sol­i­dar­i­ties, these col­lec­tives are increas­ing­ly tak­ing a cen­ter stage as forms of dis­tri­b­u­tion and shar­ing in the cur­rent era of the chang­ing dynam­ics of the rela­tion­ship between cit­i­zens, the state and the mar­ket, health and socio-eco­nom­ic crises, and glob­al finan­cial­iza­tion. A grow­ing mid­dle-class pop­u­la­tion and new dig­i­tal and mobile tech­nolo­gies are inter­act­ing with­in reg­is­ters of a long his­to­ry of mutu­al aid soci­eties in African con­texts shap­ing social net­works in dif­fer­ent ways. Mean­while, the state is seem­ing­ly tak­ing a cen­tral role in experimenting/expanding social and finan­cial pro­tec­tion through dif­fer­ent mech­a­nisms such nation­al health insur­ance schemes and cash trans­fer inter­ven­tions, which, in turn are open­ing up ways of bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er in var­ied forms. Along­side these, social and eco­nom­ic hav­oc, pre­car­i­ty, and grow­ing inequal­i­ties (health, eco­nom­ic, social), increas­ing mar­ke­ti­za­tion and access to cred­it con­tin­ue to shape and chal­lenge sol­i­dar­i­ty, while tak­ing new mean­ings across dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions, class­es, and gen­ders in dif­fer­ent con­texts. Peo­ple increas­ing­ly become part of net­works as a way of cre­at­ing sol­i­dar­i­ties and mak­ing futures. We ask what/who con­sti­tutes this future and for whom, how social net­works come to be imag­ined, con­sti­tut­ed, engaged, nego­ti­at­ed, and contested.

Please sub­mit your paper pro­pos­al here.

https://ecasconference.org/2023/programme#12488

We look for­ward to your submissions!

Con­venors

Jac­in­ta Vic­to­ria Muinde (Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo)

Edwin Ame­so (Uni­ver­si­ty of Leipzig)

Ruth Prince (Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo)

Chair

Lena Kroek­er (Bayreuth University)

 

Perma­link

05. Jun – 09. Jun 2023

Plantes médicinales et médecines du 21ème siècle

Andere

Fort­bil­dung der Société Française d’Ethnopharmacologie

07. Jun – 10. Jun 2023

Medical Precarity in Uncertain Times: Understanding Contemporary Healthcare Design, Malfunction, and Collapse

Pan­el

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.

Perma­link

07. Jun – 09. Jun 2023

Psychology and Anthropology in a Changing World

Kon­ferenz

Hybrid Con­fer­ence of the Euro­pean Net­work for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Anthro­pol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo

The con­fer­ence is meant as an inclu­sive forum for schol­ars from a wide range of dis­ci­pli­nary and the­mat­ic ori­en­ta­tions. Crit­i­cal per­spec­tives on the con­cepts of main­stream psy­chol­o­gy are encour­aged; pro­duc­tive engage­ments across the dis­ci­pli­nary bound­aries of anthro­pol­o­gy and cog­ni­tive sci­ence, psy­chi­a­try, phi­los­o­phy, evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gy, and oth­ers will also be welcome.

The con­fer­ence will be pre­ced­ed by the Writ­ing Work­shop for Grad­u­ate Stu­dents and Ear­ly Career Schol­ars. The orga­niz­ers will be able to offer sev­er­al needs-based trav­el sup­port stipends to stu­dents and ear­ly career schol­ars cov­er­ing the extra night of the pre-conference.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion and updates can be found at: https://enpanthro.net/enpa2023- conference/. If you have any fur­ther ques­tions regard­ing the con­fer­ence and the work­shop, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact the orga­niz­ers at conference@enpanthro.net

 

Perma­link

09. Jun – 10. Jun 2023

Beyond Binaries: Gender, Sexuality and Medicine in Post-War Europe

Kon­ferenz

A con­fer­ence orga­nized by the Cen­tre for the Study of Health, Ethics and Soci­ety, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg at the War­burg-Haus, Hamburg

Sub­mis­sion Dead­line: 6th March 2023

How can gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty – broad­ly con­ceived both method­olog­i­cal­ly and the­mat­i­cal­ly – help to inform his­tor­i­cal under­stand­ing of the role of med­i­cine in post-war Europe? This con­fer­ence will bring togeth­er schol­ars work­ing in dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines to exam­ine how the­o­ret­i­cal approach­es incor­po­rat­ing gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty can shed light on med­ical ethics, sci­en­tif­ic prac­tices, and pol­i­cy­mak­ing asso­ci­at­ed with health across the ide­o­log­i­cal divide. How can his­to­ries of gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty illu­mi­nate indi­vid­ual med­ical expe­ri­ences and the com­plex rela­tions between patients, doc­tors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, and med­ical ethi­cists dur­ing the Cold War period?

We are par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in papers which exam­ine gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty, and med­i­cine in Cen­tral and East­ern Europe in order to gain greater insight into how med­i­cine was imag­ined, man­aged, sold and expe­ri­enced across Europe. Explor­ing gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty in the con­text of post-war med­i­cine can help us to dis­cern poten­tial sim­i­lar­i­ties in med­ical prac­tices, poli­cies, and expe­ri­ences across Europe, which moves beyond the secu­ri­ty con­text and ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences of the Cold War to high­light the exchange of sci­en­tif­ic ideas across the “Iron Cur­tain”. Exam­in­ing gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty and med­i­cine in the post-war peri­od can bring about a new schol­ar­ly per­spec­tive on Europe as a con­ti­nent that was to some extent unit­ed by shared expe­ri­ences, poli­cies, and beliefs.

Please send a 250-word abstract and title, togeth­er with your insti­tu­tion­al affil­i­a­tion and a brief bio, to Dr Kate Dock­ing and Dr David Peace by 6 March 2023. Accom­mo­da­tion and meals for accept­ed speak­ers will be pro­vid­ed by the con­fer­ence organ­is­ers. The con­fer­ence pro­ceed­ings will be pub­lished in an edit­ed volume.

Sub­jects of papers might include, but are cer­tain­ly not lim­it­ed to:
– Repro­duc­tion: abor­tion, con­tra­cep­tion, repro­duc­tive rights, sexology
– Pro­phy­lax­is: vac­ci­na­tion, health­care campaigns
– Clin­i­cal tri­als and human experimentation
– Med­ical expe­ri­ences of trans‑, non-bina­ry, and queer persons
– Con­cepts of nor­mal­i­ty, enhance­ment, dis­abil­i­ty, and pathology
– Gen­dered natures and impli­ca­tions of eth­i­cal codes
– Gen­der inequal­i­ties in access to med­ical care and health responsibilities
– Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty in media and the arts
– Forms of protest and resis­tance: patients, pro­fes­sion­al groups
– Role of data sci­ence and genet­ics in tar­get­ed medicine
– Psy-dis­ci­plines: psy­chol­o­gy, psy­chi­a­try, psy­chodra­ma, psy­cho­analy­sis etc
– The­o­ret­i­cal reflec­tions on the writ­ing of gen­der and sexuality

Kon­takt

kate.docking@uni-hamburg.de

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23. Jun – 25. Jun 2023

Psychoanalyse und Körper: Berührung

Kon­ferenz

13. Wiener Sym­po­sium »Psy­cho­analyse und Kör­p­er« an der Sig­mund-Freud-Pri­vatu­ni­ver­sität in Wien

Das The­ma Berührung ist wohl eines der strit­tig­sten im Span­nungs­feld von Psy­cho­analyse und Kör­perpsy­chother­a­pie. In der als ›Redekur‹ konzip­ierten psy­cho­an­a­lytis­chen Behand­lung ereignet sich kör­per­liche Berührung in der Regel nur im kon­ven­tionellen Kon­text von Begrüßung und Ver­ab­schiedung. Berührung fig­uri­ert hier in ein­er all­ge­meineren Bedeu­tung, etwa im Sinne der emo­tionalen oder gestisch-mimetis­chen, leib­lichen Ein­wirkung aufeinan­der. Im Gegen­satz dazu teilen Kör­perpsy­chother­a­peuten mehrheitlich die Mei­n­ung, konkrete kör­per­liche Berührung sei ein wesentlich­er Bestandteil ein­er ther­a­peutis­chen Zugangsweise, die das kör­per­liche Geschehen inner­halb der Psy­chother­a­pie wirk­lich ernst nimmt. Sie sprechen von »heil­samen Berührun­gen« (Gün­ter Heisterkamp).

Die Unter­schiedlichkeit der Per­spek­tiv­en hat eine lange Tra­di­tion und beste­ht seit Freud. Sie hat jedoch an Aktu­al­ität nichts einge­büßt. So schreibt der dur­chaus kör­per­be­zo­gen denk­ende Psy­cho­an­a­lytik­er Sebas­t­ian Leik­ert, mehrfach Vor­tra­gen­der am Wiener Sym­po­sium »Psy­cho­analyse und Kör­p­er«, in seinem 2022 erschiene­nen Buch »Das kör­per­liche Unbe­wusste in der psy­cho­an­a­lytis­chen Behand­lung­stech­nik«: »Die fak­tis­che tak­tile Berührung ist verzicht­bar, denn die Stimme der Ana­lytik­erin oder des Ana­lytik­ers berührt das Kör­perselb­st, die gemein­same Aufmerk­samkeit berührt das Leib­liche, das res­o­nante Spüren der leib­lichen Gegenüber­tra­gung hat eine Wirkung auf das Kör­perselb­st der Analysandin oder des Analysanden. Absti­nenz ist in der Arbeit mit leib­lichen Kon­stel­la­tio­nen zen­tral, weil hier Ver­let­zlichkeit und Gefahr der Retrau­ma­tisierung beson­ders groß sind« (S. 14).

Unschw­er ist zu erken­nen, wie weit die Posi­tio­nen auseinan­der­liegen. Während sich all­ge­mein in den Behand­lungs­the­o­rien so manche Übere­in­stim­mungen find­en, zeigen sich an dieser Stelle in der Konzep­tion der ther­a­peutis­chen Sit­u­a­tion und des ther­a­peutis­chen Rah­mens Span­nungslin­ien und Kon­tro­ver­sen, die ger­ade in ihrer Grund­sät­zlichkeit nach einem interkol­le­gialen Diskurs suchen. Wie ste­ht es also um die Bedeut­samkeit konkreter kör­per­lich­er Berührung bzw. des Verzicht­es darauf? Und wie wären in diesem Kon­text z.B. Ergeb­nisse der Säuglings- und Bindungs­forschung in Betra­cht zu ziehen?

Auf der Tagung wer­den wir dieses Span­nungs­feld aus vor­wiegend klin­is­ch­er Per­spek­tive beleucht­en. Sechs Ref­er­entin­nen und Ref­er­enten wer­den aus ihrer jew­eili­gen ther­a­peutis­chen Zugangsweise her­aus eine Pati­entin / einen Patien­ten vorstellen, zen­tri­ert um die Frage, wie jew­eils ther­a­peutis­che Verän­derung möglich war, wie also die Pati­entin / der Patient in seinem Inner­sten berührt wer­den konnte.

Der interkol­le­gialen Diskus­sion wird auf dieser Tagung bre­it­er Raum gegeben. Prax­is­be­zo­gene Work­shops ergänzen das Angebot.

Ter­min
23. bis 25. Juni 2023

Ver­anstal­tung­sort
Sigmund-Freud-Privatuniversität
Freud­platz 1
A‑1020 Wien

Anmel­dung und Infor­ma­tion per Peter Geißler peter@geissler-info.at oder 0043–699-11874690 oder über die Tagung­shome­page www.psychoanalyseundkoerper.at

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28. Jun – 30. Jun 2023

“Ageing contested”. Exploring anti-ageing bio-hacking and repair practices in later life

Pan­el

Pan­el at the STS Italia Con­fer­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna

Orga­niz­ers: Francesco Miele (1); Michela Coz­za (2)
1: Uni­ver­si­ty of Tri­este, Italy; 2: Mälardalen Uni­ver­si­ty, Sweden

Top­ics: Every­day life and design of the mun­dane; Algo­rith­mic knowl­edge, media ecolo­gies and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence; Inno­va­tion imag­i­nar­ies, prac­tices and poli­cies; The val­ue of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, inno­va­tion and research prac­tices; Het­ero­ge­neous assem­blages in bio­med­ical research

Key­words: Anti-age­ing, bio-hack­ing, geron­tech­nolo­gies, socio-mate­r­i­al practices.

Over the last decades, the nexus between bio­log­i­cal age­ing and func­tion­al decline has been more and more ‘con­test­ed’ (Vin­cent, 2006), espe­cial­ly by crit­i­cal schol­ars – among them, also STS schol­ars – com­mit­ted to eman­ci­pat­ing from bio­log­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal nat­u­ral­i­sa­tions of age cat­e­gories. The rela­tion­ship between age­ing and techno­sci­en­tif­ic inno­va­tion can be analysed by focus­ing on the con­stel­la­tions of socio-mate­r­i­al prac­tices through which the rela­tion­ship itself is per­formed. Our pan­el aims at explor­ing mate­r­i­al-dis­cur­sive tex­tures asso­ci­at­ed with age­ing, by focus­ing on two inter­re­lat­ed macro-topics.

The first top­ic refers to the so-called bio-hack­ing, defined as the use of “sci­ence-based tools and short­cuts for opti­miz­ing your own bio­log­i­cal poten­tial” (Lee, 2015: 8) and for max­imis­ing longevi­ty. In line with process­es of bio­med­ical­i­sa­tion of the body (Coz­za et al., 2022), dis­cours­es and ini­tia­tives relat­ed to bio-hack­ing pop­u­late online com­mu­ni­ties and social move­ments, which gen­er­ate, share, and repro­duce techno­sci­en­tif­ic prac­tices to coun­ter­act and reverse age­ing (e.g., the quan­ti­fied-self move­ment). Sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ties and mar­kets are also involved in extreme anti-age­ing prac­tices to extend lifes­pan (e.g., gene edit­ing). The phe­nom­e­non of bio-hack­ing relies on neolib­er­al prin­ci­ples which, in turn, dic­tate the ulti­mate goal of enhanc­ing the human body through tech­nolo­gies that ‘improve’ its oth­er­wise dete­ri­o­rat­ing func­tion­al­i­ties well beyond what is actu­al­ly nec­es­sary to sus­tain or repair the body itself.

From the first top­ic descends the sec­ond focus relat­ed to a process that we would call repair­ing age­ing. In this case, we bring atten­tion to the main­te­nance of aged human bod­ies, rather than to deep manip­u­la­tive inter­ven­tions upon them. We may refer to the soft­est forms of anti-age­ing med­i­cine to cure dis­eases asso­ci­at­ed with old age and to extend life expectan­cy as much as pos­si­ble (Vin­cent, 2006). The under­ly­ing eth­ic of care induces patients, fam­i­lies, and clin­i­cians to refrain from say­ing “no” to med­ical solu­tions as embody­ing a promise of bet­ter age­ing (Kauf­man, 2004). In par­al­lel, also most of assis­tive geron­tech­nolo­gies aim at repair­ing the effects of age­ing process­es on the human body, match­ing with an imag­i­nary of old­er peo­ple as ‘in need’ of being helped, in accor­dance with the ideals of ‘inde­pen­dent liv­ing’ in lat­er life.

Hav­ing this frame­work as our start­ing point,here is a not exhaus­tive list of indica­tive top­ics that might be considered:

- Enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies for aged human bodies.

- Hack­ing age.

- Repair­ing prac­tices in lat­er life.

- Algo­rith­mic elder­ly care.

- Age­ing and self-quantification.

- Assis­tive tech­nolo­gies and emerg­ing care practices.

- Age­ing and neo-liberalism.

- Ageism in design practices.

- Clin­i­cal inter­ven­tions and life-extensions.

- Eth­i­cal dilem­mas relat­ed to bio-med­ical anti-age­ing interventions.

Ref­er­ences

Coz­za, M., Kirsten L. E., and Katz S. (2022). Hack­ing age. Soci­ol­o­gy Com­pass, 16(10), e13034.

Kauf­man, S. R., Shim, J. K., and Russ, A. J. (2004). Revis­it­ing the bio­med­ical­iza­tion of aging: Clin­i­cal trends and eth­i­cal chal­lenges. The Geron­tol­o­gist, 44(6), 731–738.

Lee, J. (2015). The bio­hack­ing man­i­festo: The sci­en­tif­ic blue­print for a long, healthy and hap­py life using cut­ting edge anti-aging and neu­ro­science based hacks. Cre­ate­Space Inde­pen­dent Pub­lish­ing Platform.

Vin­cent, J. A. (2006). Age­ing con­test­ed: Anti-age­ing sci­ence and the cul­tur­al con­struc­tion of old age. Soci­ol­o­gy, 40(4), 681–698.

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28. Jun – 30. Jun 2023

Interesting worlds as matters of caring and commoning

Pan­el

Pan­el at the 9th STS Italia Con­fer­ence in Bologna

https://eventi.unibo.it/stsitalia2023/panel-26

The dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sion is Jan­u­ary 15, 2023.
Please, find below the details.

Orga­niz­ers: Mari­acristi­na Scian­nam­blo (1); Mau­r­izio Teli (2); Gia­co­mo Poderi (3)

1: Sapien­za Uni­ver­si­ty of Rome, Italy; 2: Aal­borg Uni­ver­si­ty; 3: IT Uni­ver­si­ty of Copenhagen

Top­ics: Knowl­edge co-cre­ation, cit­i­zens sci­ence, co-design process­es, mate­r­i­al publics and grass­root inno­va­tion; Method­olog­i­cal chal­lenges in a more-than-human world; Every­day life and design of the mun­dane; The val­ue of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, inno­va­tion and research prac­tices; Extrac­tivist pow­ers, imag­i­nar­ies and asym­me­tries; Build­ing alliances in pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion and engagement

Key­words: car­ing, com­mon­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tive research, co-design, engagement

The con­cept of ‘inter­est’ has been cen­tral in STS since its incep­tion (Cal­lon and Law 1982; Cal­lon 1982), when it was intro­duced to describe net­works of rela­tion­ships between human and non-human actors through the employ­ment of devices, the devel­op­ment of inter­pre­ta­tions, and the mobi­liza­tion of alliances. The dis­cus­sion of the for­ma­tion of inter­ests and its relat­ed process­es of trans­la­tion has brought the issue of pow­er, and its reconfiguration(s), under the spot­light, as mean­ing­ful­ly artic­u­lat­ed by Cal­lon through the ques­tions: “Who speaks in the name of whom? Who rep­re­sents whom?”.

More recent­ly, the increas­ing promi­nence of crit­i­cal approach­es – e.g. fem­i­nist and post­colo­nial STS – and the inter­sec­tions with cog­nate research fields – e.g. par­tic­i­pa­to­ry design, infor­ma­tion sci­ence, envi­ron­men­tal human­i­ties – have stressed the polit­i­cal­ly engaged char­ac­ter of STS which empha­sized its ‘activist inter­est’ (Sis­mon­do, 2008). That has spurred the emer­gence of a „col­lab­o­ra­tive turn” in STS (Farías, 2017) that we see as a direct con­se­quence of STS con­cerns with pow­er. The col­lab­o­ra­tive turn has brought about ques­tions on the eth­i­cal, affec­tive, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of research­ing by means of col­lab­o­ra­tive and com­mit­ted action-research projects based on dia­logue, mutu­al learn­ing, and car­ing rela­tion­ships with­in het­ero­ge­neous collectives.

These con­cerns have been trou­bled and fur­ther elab­o­rat­ed by fem­i­nist think­ing in STS, in par­tic­u­lar with the pro­lif­ic reflec­tions on the con­cept and prac­tice of care (Mol et al. 2010; Mar­tin et al. 2015), which empha­size the ambiva­lent, sit­u­at­ed, and mate­r­i­al char­ac­ter of care as well as our own care and con­cerns as STS researchers and prac­ti­tion­ers (Puig de la Bel­la­casa 2017).

In par­al­lel, STS research has explored the impor­tance of the com­mons whether these are nat­ur­al, mate­r­i­al, human made, or imma­te­r­i­al (Papadopou­los 2018). Com­mon­ing prac­tices can indeed be con­sid­ered mat­ters of care as they attend to every­thing we do to main­tain, con­tin­ue, and repair our world (Tron­to 1993). Addi­tion­al­ly, com­mon­ing prompts us to recon­sid­er human-nature and more-than-human rela­tion­ships in ways that chal­lenge dom­i­nant exist­ing extrac­tive cap­i­tal­ist mod­els, towards “the pro­duc­tion of our­selves as a com­mon sub­ject” (Fed­eri­ci 2018). These allow us to stay with the trou­bles that attend to mat­ters of care and the relat­ed impli­ca­tions of unpack­ing the log­ics, con­tra­dic­tions, and mul­ti­ple rup­tures gen­er­at­ed by cap­i­tal­ism. Against this back­drop, we hope to make vis­i­ble the neglect­ed and often invis­i­ble labor of repro­duc­ing the com­mons, and to ques­tion which and whose mate­r­i­al, polit­i­cal, and eth­i­cal orders come into play when research­ing and inter­ven­ing in/for the commons.

This pan­el invites pre­sen­ta­tions that explore the inter­sec­tions between car­ing and com­mon­ing in the con­text of STS inter­ven­tion-ori­ent­ed research. Both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions are wel­come. These may include (but are not lim­it­ed to):

-        dis­ci­pli­nary inter­sec­tions among STS, design, and com­mon­s/-ing studies;

-        knowl­edge co-cre­ation, co-design process­es, mate­r­i­al publics and grass­root innovation;

-        ICT, labor, and precariousness;

-        the­o­ries and method­olog­i­cal approach­es as forms of car­ing and commoning;

-        com­plex­i­ties, oppor­tu­ni­ties, and con­tra­dic­tions of mak­ing new alliances between researchers, activists, local pop­u­la­tions, and institutions;

-        sites of ambiva­lence and con­tra­dic­tions in car­ing and com­mon­ing practices.

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28. Jun – 30. Jun 2023

Interesting Worlds to Come. Science & Technology Studies facing more-than-human

Kon­ferenz

9th STS Italia Con­fer­ence host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna, Italy

The list of rel­e­vant panels:
Pan­el 5. ‘Out­break’: Sci­ence, gov­er­nance, and respond­ing oth­er­wise to chal­lenges to come.
Pan­el 29. Mate­ri­al­i­ty and research in muse­ums of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and medicine.
Pan­el 36. Diag­no­sis, prog­no­sis, treat­ment – Towards fair and sus­tain­able care pro­vi­sions in health sys­tems and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal innovation.
Pan­el 41. More-than-human med­i­cine? Unpack­ing the use of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) tech­nolo­gies in health­care settings.
Pan­el 44. Explor­ing Promis­ing Tech­nol­o­gy in Neuroscience.

http://www.stsitalia.org/9th-sts-italia-conference-interesting-worlds-to-come-science-technology-studies-facing-more-than-human-challenges-28th-1st-june-2023-bologna-italy/

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30. Jun – 01. Jul 2023

Natur machen: Wissen, Praktiken und Technologien der Umweltgestaltung in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts

Work­shop

Inter­diszi­plinär­er Work­shop am His­torischen Sem­i­nar der Uni­ver­sität Siegen

Die 1950er Jahre gel­ten als Zäsur der Umwelt­geschichte. Davon zeu­gen Schlag­worte wie jene des „1950er Syn­droms“ (Pfis­ter), der „Großen Beschle­u­ni­gung“ (McNeill/Engelke), aber auch des Anthro­pozäns, dessen Beginn bisweilen auf die Nachkriegszeit datiert wird. Die tief­greifend­en Umwälzun­gen gesellschaftlich­er Naturver­hält­nisse gin­gen indes ein­her mit einem weniger beachteten Wan­del des Stel­len­wertes „der Natur“ inner­halb indus­tri­al­isiert­er Gesellschaften. Auch wenn sich der Beginn dieser Entwick­lung auf ver­schiede­nen Feldern bere­its in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhun­derts aus­machen lässt, war Natur ab den 1950er Jahren flächen­deck­end nicht mehr etwas, von dem es sich zu emanzip­ieren galt, noch etwas zu Kon­servieren­des. Vielmehr rück­te das Her­stellen von Natur in den Fokus – Natur wurde auf eine jew­eils neue Weise prob­lema­tisiert, in poli­tis­che Ratio­nal­itäten inte­gri­ert und erhielt spez­i­fis­che Funktionen.

Exem­plar­isch dafür kann die Geschichte des Naturschutzes in bei­den deutschen Staat­en nach dem Zweit­en Weltkrieg betra­chtet wer­den. In der Bun­desre­pub­lik stand der soge­nan­nte „Glas­glocken­naturschutz“ in der Kri­tik, die planer­isch-gestal­ter­ische Lan­despflege set­zte sich als Mod­ernisierungsange­bot durch. Ganz ähn­lich galt in der DDR der kon­servierende Naturschutz als Relikt bürg­er­lich­er Naturäs­thetik und wurde in die Land­schaft­spflege – bald „sozial­is­tis­che Lan­deskul­tur“ – inte­gri­ert. Aus Naturschutzge­bi­eten wur­den „Frei­land­lab­o­ra­to­rien“, Wis­sensprak­tiken wie jene der Veg­e­ta­tion­skartierung ließen sich in ein anwen­dung­sori­en­tiertes Forschung­spro­gramm zur (Re-)Konstruktion von Ökosys­te­men umschreiben.

Die an diesem Prozess beteiligten Akteure begrün­de­ten die Notwendigkeit Natur herzustellen – ob großflächige Land­schaften oder klein­teiligeres Stadt­grün – oft­mals damit, dass sie etwa ökonomis­che, medi­zinis­che und ökol­o­gis­che Funk­tio­nen erfülle. Darunter fie­len mit jew­eili­gen Kon­junk­turen solche der Erhol­ung sowie gesund­heit­spoli­tis­che Auf­gaben im All­ge­meinen oder auch solche der Reg­u­la­tion von Umweltme­di­en sowie des Kli­maschutzes. Lassen sich manche dieser Vorstel­lun­gen bis um die Jahrhun­der­twende zurück­ver­fol­gen, wur­den sie nun ver­wis­senschaftlicht in umfängliche Pla­nung­sprozesse über­set­zt. Natur galt aus dieser Per­spek­tive als Mit­tel gegen jene neg­a­tiv­en Effek­te, die mit der „Großen Beschle­u­ni­gung“ ver­bun­den wur­den. Dafür bedurfte es jedoch nicht nur Natur-Wis­sen, son­dern eine anhand dieses Wis­sens gestal­tete Natur. Nicht sel­ten war dieser Zugriff auf die äußere Natur des Men­schen verknüpft mit Vorstel­lun­gen sein­er inneren Natur. Etwa dann, wenn eine dem Men­schen naturgemäße Umwelt gefordert wurde, da sie der gesellschaftlichen Reg­ulierung diene. Natur­poli­tik und ‑gestal­tung sind in diesem Sinne auch als Regierungs- und Sozial­tech­nolo­gien zu analysieren.

Natur machen beschreibt dieses het­ero­gene Ensem­ble. Im Zen­trum ste­hen Wis­sens­for­ma­tio­nen, Prak­tiken und Tech­nolo­gien wie etwa jene der Rena­turierung und ‑kul­tivierung, der Landschafts‑, Stadt- und Humanökolo­gie, der Inge­nieur­biolo­gie und Land­schaft­s­pla­nung, des Arten- und Biotop- sowie des Prozesss­chutzes. Deren Beginn fällt zwar bisweilen in die erste Hälfte des 20. Jahrhun­derts: Sys­tem­a­tis­che Forschung, umfängliche Anwen­dung und Insti­tu­tion­al­isierung erfuhren sie in der Regel jedoch erst ab den 1950er Jahren. Darin unter­schei­den sie sich von Ein­grif­f­en in den Land­schafts- und Naturhaushalt im All­ge­meinen sowie von länger eingeübten Prak­tiken, etwa der Melio­ra­tion. Es geht nicht um die „Eroberung der Natur“ (Black­bourn), son­dern um ihre bewusste (Re-)Konstruktion in Form arti­fizieller Natur-Rep­li­ka. Ein Beispiel dafür ist die seit den 1970er Jahren ver­stärkt auszu­machende Prax­is der Flussre­na­turierung, die auf eine jahrhun­dertealte Prax­is der Begr­a­di­gung reagierte. Ger­ade darin zeigt sich indes die Wider­sprüch­lichkeit des Natur Machens. Ein­er­seits lassen sich diese neuen Naturen nur als tech­no-sozio-nat­u­rale Assem­bla­gen denken, ander­er­seits erfüllen sie ihre Funk­tion als Sim­u­lakrum darüber, dass sie ihre sozio- und techno­genen Anteile ver­schleiern. Auch daher gin­gen Prozesse der Her­stel­lung häu­fig ein­her mit ontol­o­gis­chen und ethis­chen Debat­ten darüber, was Natur ist – und was sie in der indus­tri­al­isierten Gesellschaft sein soll.

Der Work­shop will sich diesem The­ma aus ver­schiede­nen Per­spek­tiv­en näh­ern und sucht nach Beiträ­gen aus den Geistes- und Sozial­wis­senschaften, die obige Gedanken aufnehmen. Sie kön­nen sowohl the­o­retisch als auch empirisch aus­gerichtet sein und sich auf die Geschichte des Natur Machens im gesamten 20. Jahrhun­dert beziehen. Neben his­torischen Fall­stu­di­en etwa der Rekul­tivierungs- und Rena­turierung­sprax­is – von dev­astierten Flächen des Tage­baus über Stadt­be­grü­nung bis zur (Wieder-)Herstellung von Ökosys­te­men – und ihrer Rezep­tion inter­essieren auch Analy­sen obiger Diszi­plinen und Prak­tiken. Aus the­o­retis­ch­er Per­spek­tive stellen sich etwa Fra­gen der Mate­ri­al­ität und hybri­den Ontolo­gien inner­halb der Prozesse des Natur Machens sowie auch nach der Anwend­barkeit von in jün­ger­er Zeit disku­tierten Konzepten wie jen­em der Öko-Gouvernementalität.

Vorschläge für einen Vor­trag (20 Minuten) im Umfang von ca. 300 Wörtern sowie ein kurz­er akademis­ch­er Werde­gang wer­den bis zum 31. Jan­u­ar 2023 erbeten per E‑Mail an: martina.huttner@uni-siegen.de

Vor­be­haltlich zur Ver­fü­gung ste­hen­der Mit­tel kön­nen Reise- und Über­nach­tungskosten über­nom­men werden.

Für Fra­gen ste­hen die Organ­isatoren des Work­shops zur Verfügung:

Prof. Dr. Noy­an Dinçkal, Europäis­che Wis­sens- und Kom­mu­nika­tion­s­geschichte der Mod­erne, Uni­ver­sität Siegen (dinckal@geschichte.uni-siegen.de)

Dr. Philipp Kröger, Geschichte der Gegen­wart, Uni­ver­sität Siegen (philipp.kroeger@uni-siegen.de)

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25. Jul – 28. Jul 2023

Being in/ at Work: Repositioning Knowledge about Work, Disability, Chronicity

Pan­el

Pan­el at the DGSKA (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kul­tur­an­thro­polo­gie) con­fer­ence in Munich

Just a short reminder of our pan­el on work and disability/chronicity at next year’s DGSKA (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kul­tur­an­thro­polo­gie) con­fer­ence in Munich (25–28 July 2023). We hope to cre­ate a plat­form for schol­ars inter­est­ed in how people’s being at/in work relate to expe­ri­ences of dis­abil­i­ty and chronic­i­ty, in par­tic­u­lar in (but not restrict­ed to) con­texts of the Glob­al South. Your con­tri­bu­tions to the pan­el will hope­ful­ly lead to a spe­cial issue that taps into this (neglect­ed) field.

Sub­mis­sions (max. 200 words) should go to stefanie.mauksch@uni-leipzig.de. The Call for Paper runs until 15 Decem­ber 2022. Please con­sid­er sub­mit­ting an abstract and cir­cu­late widely.

Being in/ at Work: Repo­si­tion­ing Knowl­edge about Work, Dis­abil­i­ty, Chronic­i­ty (Work­shop)

Dis­abil­i­ty and chronic­i­ty are terms that seek to cap­ture bioso­cial expe­ri­ences that inter­sect with, and affect, how peo­ple engage in work, labor or employ­ment. This pan­el is focused on how peo­ple nav­i­gate dis­abling, debil­i­tat­ing and/or are enabling expe­ri­ences in and through work, and how these expe­ri­ences are shaped by the social local­i­ties from which they emerge. We place empha­sis on how work becomes sig­nif­i­cant for peo­ple whose bod­i­ly con­di­tions or appear­ances are pro­duced as ‘oth­er’ in respec­tive soci­eties, or who expe­ri­ence pain or chron­ic ill­ness that delim­it (but maybe also reshape or expand) their pos­si­bil­i­ties to con­tribute to com­mu­ni­ties and oth­er social arrange­ments. Depart­ing from the focus on work-relat­ed exclu­sion put for­ward in pre­vi­ous inquiries in anthro­pol­o­gy and relat­ed dis­ci­plines, we attend to pos­i­tive rela­tions between occu­pa­tion­al iden­ti­ties and work embod­i­ments on the one hand, and expe­ri­ences of dis­abil­i­ty and chronic­i­ty on the oth­er. Explor­ing new angles on the inter­play between ‘being dis­abled’ and ‘being in/at work’, we ask whether and how work ‘works’ as a form to aban­don or to prob­lema­tize con­struc­tions of dis­abil­i­ty. The work­shop will bring togeth­er schol­ars who address one or more of the fol­low­ing concerns:

Co-Con­sti­tu­tion: How are forms of dis­abil­i­ty and/or chronic­i­ty defined in con­nec­tion to notions and ideas of work? And vice ver­sa, how do dis­abil­i­ty and chronic­i­ty shape extant forms of labor?

Mean­ing-Mak­ing: How do peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ty and/or chron­ic con­di­tions in dif­fer­ent local­i­ties around the globe per­form and talk about their work?

Cri­tique: How can embed­ded under­stand­ings of dis­abil­i­ty, chronic­i­ty and work be brought to estrange the work­ings of admin­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures, ide­olo­gies and polit­i­cal arrangements?

Reflec­tion and Auto-Ethnog­ra­phy: To what degree is the labor of anthro­pol­o­gists shaped by ableist con­cep­tions? Which poten­tial does dis­abil­i­ty hold to explore exclu­sion­ary dimen­sions of anthro­po­log­i­cal work?

Best, Ste­fanie Mauksch
Insti­tut für Ethnologie
Fakultät für Geschichte, Kun­st und Regionalwissenschaften
Uni­ver­sität Leipzig
+49 341 97 37 227
stefanie.mauksch@uni-leipzig.de

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25. Jul – 28. Jul 2023

Families Managing Health and Wellbeing in Times of Crisis

Pan­el

Pan­el at the Ger­man Anthro­po­log­i­cal Association’s (DGSKA e.V.) bian­nu­al con­fer­ence „Con­test­ed Knowl­edge: Per­spec­tives in Social
and Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy” at the Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­sität München

Dear col­leagues,
On behalf of the work group Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy we warm­ly invite you to
our work­shop at the Ger­man Anthro­po­log­i­cal Association’s (DGSKA e.V.)
next bian­nu­al con­fer­ence „Con­test­ed Knowl­edge: Per­spec­tives in Social
and Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy” (Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­sität München,
25–28 July 2023), see abstract below. The work­shop will include a
keynote address by Prof. Sjaak van der Geest (Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of
Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam). Please send your
abstract of *max. 200 words* to a.bochow1@gmail.com and
dominik.mattes@fu-berlin.de *by 15 Decem­ber 2022*. We look for­ward to
your con­tri­bu­tions!
Best wish­es,
Astrid Bochow and Dominik Mattes
—-
*Fam­i­lies Man­ag­ing Health and Well­be­ing in Times of Crisis*
AG Med­ical Anthropology
PD Dr. Astrid Bochow, Georg-August-Uni­ver­sität Göttingen
Dr. Dominik Mattes, Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin
Post­colo­nial the­o­ry crit­i­cizes that knowl­edge about the body, health,
and well­be­ing is deeply con­nect­ed to vary­ing forms of governmentality
and sub­mis­sion. Post­colo­nial ethnog­ra­phy, for instance, documents
con­tests over health epis­te­molo­gies and author­i­ty in con­texts of medical
plu­ral­ism and shows that fam­i­lies are cru­cial in the sense of “ther­a­py
man­ag­ing groups” that help medi­ate dif­fer­ent health epistemologies
rec­on­cil­ing, for instance, social-spir­i­tu­al with phys­i­cal aspects of
heal­ing. Fam­i­lies also par­take in the nego­ti­a­tions around diverging
con­cep­tu­al­iza­tions of health and well-being between indi­vid­ual patients
and bio­med­ical insti­tu­tions. Final­ly, fam­i­lies may medi­ate particular
forms of sub­jec­ti­va­tion pur­sued by state insti­tu­tions, while themselves
sub­du­ing indi­vid­u­als to local forms of gen­der and age-relat­ed hierarchies.
Mean­while, recent social phe­nom­e­na such as long-term lock­downs during
the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, dra­mat­i­cal­ly ris­ing dai­ly liv­ing expenses,
grow­ing num­bers of peo­ple being forced to leave their home coun­tries, as
well as envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes rein­force pub­lic and scholarly
inter­ests in fam­i­lies as resources of social and mate­r­i­al care and
sup­port for vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple includ­ing chil­dren and elder­ly peo­ple. We
invite papers that reflect on how fam­i­lies shape health man­age­ment in
these (and oth­er) con­texts of cri­sis where mul­ti­ple forms of knowledge
and insti­tu­tion­al expec­ta­tions col­lide. Among oth­ers, they may address
the fol­low­ing questions:
How do fam­i­ly mem­bers medi­ate (com­pet­ing) insti­tu­tion­al knowl­edge, e.g.
relat­ed to nutri­tion, sports, med­ica­tion but also loss and trauma?
Which sources and bod­ies of knowl­edge are deemed legit­i­mate for what
rea­sons, and how are they negotiated?
Do dai­ly health-relat­ed deci­sions reflect gen­der and age-related
hier­ar­chies?
How do fam­i­ly mem­bers deal with gov­ern­men­tal and oth­er institutional
expec­ta­tions con­cern­ing their role as cen­tral sites of caregiving?

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25. Jul – 28. Jul 2023

Troubled Knowledge: Health, Harm and the Environment in late Industrialism

Pan­el

Pan­el at the DGSKA (Deutsche Gesel­len­schaft für Sozial- und Kul­tur­an­thro­polo­gie) con­fer­ence in Munich

Over the last decades, a grow­ing num­ber of schol­ars in the nat­ur­al and
social sci­ences have shown the dev­as­tat­ing health effects of
envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion on humans and oth­er liv­ing beings. Hydrocarbon
extrac­tion, chem­i­cal pol­lu­tants with­in exten­sive plan­ta­tion regimes as
well as the envi­ron­men­tal effects of glob­al sup­ply-chains are only some
exam­ples of con­tem­po­rary eco­nom­ic, indus­tri­al, agri­cul­tur­al and medical
activ­i­ties, which are deeply gen­dered and racial­ized. All this has
con­tributed to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, the break­down of biological
and social sys­tems as well as the increase of chron­ic health problems,
hit­ting par­tic­u­lar­ly the most pre­car­i­ous, in both the Glob­al South and
North. While numer­ous pub­lic actors cor­rob­o­rate the valid­i­ty of such
knowl­edge, oth­er actors, how­ev­er, con­test not only the intertwinements
between envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion and health issues but also its
anthro­po­ge­n­e­sis.
We wish to dis­cuss in how far anthro­po­log­i­cal meth­ods pro­vide the
nec­es­sary time and depth to fur­ther knowl­edge on expe­ri­ences and
rela­tions through which grow­ing lev­els of tox­i­c­i­ty, pol­lu­tion, and
atmos­pher­ic warm­ing man­i­fest as health is-sues, as well as to understand
the con­tro­ver­sial and infor­mal forms of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion that
sur­round this. There­fore, we ask: Through which knowl­edge prac­tices do
eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal actors try to obfus­cate the con­nec­tions between
pol­lu­tion, tox­i­c­i­ties and human and more-than-human dis­ease? Which role
does anthro­po­log­i­cal knowl­edge play in ongo­ing debates about the health
effects of late indus­tri­al­ism? How do peo­ple and activists on the ground
pro­duce and spread de-colo­nial, anti-ableist, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry and
col­lab­o­ra­tive knowl­edge about the rela­tions between health and
envi­ron­ments? In which ways do dai­ly liv­ing expe­ri­ences, that
anthro­po­log­i­cal knowl­edge is based on, chal­lenge and com­pli­cate existing
causative mod­els about the dis/juncture between envi­ron­men­tal pollution
and health effects in human afterlives?
Please send a text of max. 200 words direct­ly to the workshop
orga­niz­ers. Dead­line: 15 Decem­ber 2022
Gior­gio Brocco
Depart­ment of Social and Cul­tur­al Anthropology
Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna
Uni­ver­sitätsstraße 7 (NIG)
1010 Wien
Raum: C0412
T: +43–1‑4277–49535

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21. Aug – 23. Aug 2023

The Psychology of Religion in an Entangled World

Kon­ferenz

IAPR con­fer­ence in Groningen

Schol­ars in the Psy­chol­o­gy of Reli­gion (PoR) employ dif­fer­ent dis­ci­pli­nary and method­olog­i­cal per­spec­tives to study diverse top­ics, such as lived spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, reli­gious diver­si­ty and health and well­be­ing. Chal­lenges such as glob­al­iza­tion, cli­mate change and shift­ing pow­er struc­tures make many of these top­ics increas­ing­ly com­plex. The PoR requires new hori­zons to tack­le them: nov­el method­olog­i­cal tools, the­o­ret­i­cal insights, col­lab­o­ra­tions and a crit­i­cal rein­ter­pre­ta­tion and decol­o­niza­tion. This con­fer­ence aims to bring togeth­er experts who can offer fresh per­spec­tives to the PoR because of their unique method­olog­i­cal approach or (inter)disciplinary back­ground and who will inspire the field to address today’s chal­lenges in new ways.

To explore new hori­zons for the PoR, we have invit­ed keynote speak­ers from dif­fer­ent dis­ci­pli­nary back­grounds who, in their research, all focus on cur­rent soci­etal and sci­en­tif­ic chal­lenges. Their keynotes will engage in dia­logue with the PoR and offer new per­spec­tives on reli­gion, men­tal health and stress resilience; extrem­ism, ter­ror­ism, and con­flict; cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal­ism; and reli­gion, gen­der and diversity.

https://www.netherlands.iaprweb.org/

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24. Aug – 25. Aug 2023

Reproductive technologies and the Remaking of Life and Death

Kon­ferenz

Inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence by Techn­oDeath at Aal­borg Uni­ver­si­ty in Copenhagen

The increas­ing glob­al devel­op­ment and use of repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies have prompt­ed repro­duc­tive schol­ars with­in the social sci­ences and human­i­ties to raise ques­tions regard­ing how fam­i­ly, kin­ship, race, gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty, and dis­abil­i­ties inter­sect. Such stud­ies have focused not least on how the selec­tion of gametes, chil­dren, and par­ents takes place dur­ing med­ical treat­ment. Over­all, these stud­ies have illus­trat­ed how repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies are always tech­nolo­gies of biopol­i­tics, as they poten­tial­ly reflect on the gov­ern­ing of both life and death. Mean­while, com­pared to how repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies are seen to remake life, the tech­no­log­i­cal remak­ing of death has yet to be grant­ed the same amount of schol­ar­ly attention.

At this inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence, we want to recen­ter the focus of repro­duc­tive stud­ies to explore how tech­nolo­gies remake death as it inter­sects with life. We hope to engage in a range of dif­fer­ent cas­es regard­ing how life and death emerge and are under­stood, such as dur­ing the cry­op­reser­va­tion and stor­age of gametes, in stud­ies of fam­i­ly plan­ning, in the use of pre­na­tal screen­ing, and in tech­nolo­gies involved in mis­car­riages, fetal reduc­tion, abor­tions, still births, births, neona­tal care, and infant death. We there­by hope to unpack how death emerges in rela­tion to tech­nolo­gies involved, how cells, fetal tis­sue, and bod­ies that are dead become man­aged, and how peo­ple live with deaths after they have ter­mi­nat­ed a preg­nan­cy or expe­ri­enced infant death. We hope to bring for­ward embod­ied sto­ries of how tech­no­log­i­cal remaking’s of life and death are expe­ri­enced, unpack­ing these sto­ries in rela­tion to how repro­duc­tive inequal­i­ties and cur­rent local and glob­al forms of repro­duc­tive and pop­u­la­tion pol­i­tics unfold.

We invite con­tri­bu­tions to think about and relate to ques­tions such as the following:

How does tech­nol­o­gy remake death and dying at the begin­ning of life?
How are colo­nial pasts, as well as racial­ized and gen­dered per­cep­tions of bod­ies, entan­gled in the use of tech­nolo­gies of life and death at the begin­ning of life?
What bio- and necrop­o­lit­i­cal prac­tices are involved in the pop­u­la­tion pol­i­tics at stake glob­al­ly regard­ing bod­ies that are enabled to either live or die?
How does the cry­op­reser­va­tion of gametes relate to life and death, giv­en that the sus­pen­sion of life is enabled?
How does tech­nol­o­gy shape expe­ri­ences and pol­i­tics regard­ing abor­tion globally?
As med­ical staff, what is it like to work with tech­nolo­gies enabling life and death?
How are abor­tion and fetal reduc­tion expe­ri­enced by preg­nant persons?
How are tech­nolo­gies entan­gled with affect or emo­tions dur­ing the process of mak­ing life and death?
How do legal and med­ical tech­nolo­gies inter­sect as per­cep­tions of qual­i­ty of life are assessed in deci­sions on whether to allow some­one to live or die?
How are tech­nolo­gies used to man­age the deaths of fetus­es and infants in mater­ni­ty wards and neona­tal inten­sive care units until the bur­ial or dis­pos­al of the body, and what norms of affect and griev­ing are implied?
How do par­ents who have lost a child or ter­mi­nat­ed a preg­nan­cy live with the remak­ing of death and dying through technologies?
How can tech­nolo­gies of life and death at the begin­ning of life be the­o­ret­i­cal­ly conceptualized?
What are the method­olog­i­cal chal­lenges of study­ing tech­nolo­gies of life and death at the begin­ning of life?

Kind regards,
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Stine Willum Adri­an and PhD fel­low Lau­ra Louise Heinsen

https://www.kultur.aau.dk/forskning/forskningsgrupper/caf/technodeath/konference

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08. Sep – 09. Sep 2023

AGEM-Jahrestagung 35 – Krisen, Körper, Kompetenzen. Methoden und Potentiale medizinanthropologischen Forschens

AGEM-Ver­anstal­tung

35. Jahresta­gung der Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft Eth­nolo­gie und Medi­zin (AGEM) in Koop­er­a­tion mit dem 20. Arbeit­str­e­f­fen der Kom­mis­sion Medi­z­inan­thro­polo­gie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Empirische Kul­tur­wis­senschaft (DGEKW) im War­burg-Haus in Hamburg

Krisen und die Rede von Krisen haben Kon­junk­tur. Neben Umwelt‑, Versorgungs‑, und Finanzkrise haben nicht zulet­zt die Ver­bre­itung von SARS-CoV­‑2 und die damit ver­bun­de­nen erhe­blichen sozialen, poli­tis­chen, gesund­heitlichen und wirtschaftlichen Fol­gen vie­len vor Augen geführt, wie frag­il Gesellschaften und gesellschaftlich­er Zusam­men­halt sind.  Krisen- und Lim­i­nal­ität­ser­fahrun­gen stellen soziale Ord­nun­gen in ihren alltäglichen Selb­stver­ständlichkeit­en in Frage und sind im sozialen Wan­del bspw. an Übergän­gen des Lebensver­laufes wie Geburt, Schulein­tritt, Pubertät, Beruf­swahl, Part­ner­schaft, Kinder, Ruh­e­s­tand oder dro­hen­der Tod selb­st alltäglich. Als per­sön­liche Krisen kön­nen sie das Leben erschüt­tern, z. B. durch die Diag­nose ein­er unheil­baren oder chro­nis­chen Krankheit oder durch den Ver­lust eines nah­este­hen­den Men­schen und Risse in der eige­nen Biogra­phie verur­sachen, die, neben unvorherge­se­henen Ereignis­sen, durch inter­sek­tionale soziale Mar­gin­al­isierun­gen, bspw. im Kon­text von Dis­abil­i­ties, ver­stärkt wer­den. In der gegen­wär­ti­gen Sit­u­a­tion spitzt sich die Frage nach den in Krisen einge­bun­de­nen Kör­pern weit­er zu.

Mit dieser Tagung richt­en wir den Fokus auf die medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­che Erforschung der alltäglichen Erfahrun­gen und kör­per­lichen Dimen­sio­nen von Krisen. Wir fra­gen nach den Verkör­pe­run­gen per­ma­nen­ter Krisen­er­fahrun­gen und Mod­i­fika­tio­nen der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung und des Erlebens, die in ihren Fol­gen selb­st im Gesund­heitssys­tem rel­e­vant wer­den, eben­so wie nach deren Bew­er­tun­gen im Span­nungs­feld von Degen­er­a­tion und Resilienz als ver­lorene oder gewonnene Kom­pe­ten­zen. Gle­ichzeit­ig fra­gen wir nach den Poten­tialen medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­chen Forschens und laden dazu ein, method­ol­o­gis­che Fra­gen gegen­stands­be­zo­gen zu disku­tieren. Zen­tral für diese Diskus­sion sind unter anderem kol­lab­o­ra­tive und par­tizipa­tive Forschungsan­sätze, die die kon­ven­tionelle Dichotomie der Forschen­den und der zu Erforschen­den hin­ter­fra­gen. Die medi­z­inan­thro­pol­o­gis­che Forschung zeigt, wie Gesund­heit­sideen und ‑prak­tiken soziale Ungle­ich­heit nicht nur zum Aus­druck brin­gen, son­dern auch per­pe­tu­ieren und ver­stärken kön­nen. Mögliche weit­ere Fra­gen sind, welche Her­aus­forderun­gen sich bei der Erforschung kör­per­lich­er Erfahrung und sinnlich­er Wahrnehmungen für das ethno­graphis­che Schreiben ergeben, welche method­ol­o­gis­chen Neuerun­gen, die vor allem durch die pan­demis­che Aus­nahme­si­t­u­a­tion ent­standen sind, das qual­i­ta­tive Forschungsspek­trum der Medi­z­inan­thro­polo­gie erweit­ern und welche neuen Wege zur Reflex­ion dig­i­taler Forschungsmeth­o­d­en sich eröffnet haben.

Keynote: Prof. Dr. Hel­la von Unger (LMU München).

Die Tagung ist inter­diszi­plinär aus­gerichtet und wen­det sich an Wissenschaftler*innen aus Eth­nolo­gie, Europäis­ch­er Ethnologie/Kulturanthropologie, Medi­z­inan­thro­polo­gie, Sozi­olo­gie, Geschichte, Geschlechter­forschung, Medi­zin, Reli­gions- und Medi­en­wis­senschaft sowie angren­zen­den Diszi­plinen. Dabei möcht­en wir expliz­it auch Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen ein­laden, sich am inter­diszi­plinären Aus­tausch zu beteili­gen. Die Tagungssprache wird Deutsch sein.

Inter­essierte wer­den gebeten, ein Abstract ihres Vor­trags­the­mas (500 Wörter) zusam­men mit ein­er Kurzbi­ogra­phie bis zum 1. Mai 2023 an fol­gende Adresse zu senden: info@agem.de

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13. Sep – 14. Sep 2023

Socialist Governmentality? Healthcare, technologies of the self, and subjectification in European state socialism, 1945–1990

Work­shop

Work­shop at the Insti­tute for the His­to­ry of Med­i­cine and Ethics in Med­i­cine – Char­ité Uni­ver­sitätsmedi­zin Berlin

The two-day work­shop aims to dis­cuss the ques­tion, whether and how Michel Foucault’s ideas on lib­er­al (and cap­i­tal­ist) “gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty” can be pro­duc­tive­ly applied on con­tem­po­rary or his­tor­i­cal social­ist soci­eties. It intends to take a clos­er look at gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty, not from the per­spec­tive of pol­i­cy mak­ers or the pow­er appa­ra­tus, but by using the exam­ple of health­care in post-1945 Social­ist Europe.

Socialist Governmentality? Healthcare, technologies of the self, and subjectification in European state socialism, 1945–1990

After the col­lapse of the Cold War two-bloc sys­tem in 1989/90, his­to­ri­og­ra­phy and social sci­ences tend­ed to sharply con­trast post-World War II social­ist and non-social­ist soci­eties. Recent­ly, the focus has shift­ed to a more com­pre­hen­sive and nuanced per­spec­tive inter­est­ed in dif­fer­ences as much as par­al­lels, includ­ing inter­sec­tions and con­ver­gences between the two sys­tems. Some even ask, if the Iron Cur­tain might not be bet­ter described as a per­me­able Nylon Cur­tain. In this con­text, a more gen­er­al ques­tion has emerged: whether and how Michel Foucault’s ideas on lib­er­al (and cap­i­tal­ist) “gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty”, first for­mu­lat­ed in 1977/78, can be pro­duc­tive­ly applied on con­tem­po­rary or his­tor­i­cal social­ist soci­eties. After all, at first glance the lib­er­al and indi­vid­u­al­ized tech­nolo­gies of the self stand in sharp con­trast to the ide­o­log­i­cal­ly shaped and admin­is­tra­tive­ly medi­at­ed for­ma­tion of a “social­ist personality”.

It is hard­ly con­tro­ver­sial that the Fou­cauldian con­cept of “biopol­i­tics” – secur­ing and enhanc­ing “life” of the gov­erned “pop­u­la­tion” – is a very use­ful tool for ana­lyz­ing both social­ist and non-social­ist gov­ern­ment poli­cies when it comes to, for exam­ple, birth reg­u­la­tion and prona­tal­ism, agri­cul­tur­al poli­cies or pre­ven­tive health­care regimes. “Gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty” as defined by Fou­cault, how­ev­er, char­ac­ter­izes a kind of biopol­i­tics which seems to be specif­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed to a way of live in neolib­er­al-demo­c­ra­t­ic and cap­i­tal­ist soci­eties. The con­cept focus­es on “pri­vate” lifestyles (diet and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, sex, emo­tions, etc.). The shap­ing of indi­vid­ual behav­ior and sub­jec­tiv­i­ty through a “con­duct of con­duct” ensures that the individual’s striv­ing for auton­o­my and their capac­i­ty for self-con­trol, self-reliance, and reflex­iv­i­ty serve the (pre­sumed) com­mon good. Gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty, then, describes how self-con­duct simul­ta­ne­ous­ly “gov­erns” oth­ers by gov­ern­ing one­self in ways that are desir­able for the poli­ty and accept­able to the governed.

In the last decades, the con­cept of gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty helped to under­stand how neolib­er­al­ism made cit­i­zens respon­si­ble for the for­mer tasks of the post­war-wel­fare state and how the mar­ket redis­trib­uted those tasks to the indi­vid­ual (sub­ject). From this the­o­ret­i­cal stand­point, gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty seems incom­pat­i­ble with social­ist ide­ol­o­gy, state con­trol, phys­i­cal repres­sion, and the pre­rog­a­tive of the col­lec­tive. In recent years, how­ev­er, we learned that pur­su­ing a bot­tom-up per­spec­tive can pro­vide addi­tion­al or even deep­er insights into the com­plex­i­ties of social­ist real­i­ties. This is the aim of the pro­posed work­shop: To take a clos­er look at gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty, not from the per­spec­tive of pol­i­cy mak­ers or the pow­er appa­ra­tus, but by using the exam­ple of health­care in post-1945 Social­ist Europe.

We pro­pose to explore con­crete exam­ples from every­day health­care set­tings – in psy­cho­log­i­cal coun­sel­ing, clin­i­cal social work, and com­mu­ni­ty med­i­cine, in treat­ing chron­ic dis­eases and in pre­ven­tive health­care, in school edu­ca­tion and the work­place, in healthy leisure activ­i­ties, and in shap­ing a hap­py fam­i­ly life. What mech­a­nisms of dis­sem­i­na­tion, recep­tion, and medi­a­tion of self-tech­niques can be found and ana­lyzed? Were ele­ments or pat­terns of gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty trans­ferred from the West to the East or do we also find “home-grown” inven­tions? Were social­ist soci­eties more “lib­er­al” than they realised and want­ed to be? If so, what does this mean for the way we look at gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty in “West­ern” societies?

The work­shop will be held in Berlin on Sep­tem­ber 13–14, 2023. We plan this to be a fair­ly small group of peo­ple to make the dis­cus­sions as open and live­ly as pos­si­ble. To facil­i­tate a pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sion, we invite papers from ongo­ing research that will be dis­trib­uted to par­tic­i­pants (and com­men­ta­tors) in advance. Expens­es for trav­el and hotel will be cov­ered. We wel­come abstracts in Eng­lish of no more than 300 words. Please send an abstract and a short CV by e‑mail (henriette.voelker@charite.de) by Decem­ber 19, 2022.

The work­shop is orga­nized by Dr. Alexa Geisthöv­el and Lau­ra Hot­ten­rott (both ERC Leviathan) and Prof. Dr. Vio­la Balz (FOR “normal#verrückt”). We grate­ful­ly acknowl­edge the sup­port of the Euro­pean Research Coun­cil (ERC Grant 854503) and the Ger­man Research Foun­da­tion (DFG FOR 3031). Please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us if you have any questions.

Kon­takt

alexandra.geisthoevel@charite.de
laura.hottenrott@charite.de
viola.balz@charite.de
volker.hess@charite.de

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