Veranstaltungskalender

„Läuft. Die Ausstel­lung zur Menstruation“

06.10.2023 bis 06.10.2024
Muse­um Europäis­ch­er Kul­turen – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Etwa 2 Mil­liar­den Men­schen auf der Welt men­stru­ieren. Über 1,5 Mil­liar­den weit­ere Men­schen hat­ten ihre Peri­ode oder wer­den sie bekom­men. Seit rund 10 Jahren nun wird die Men­stru­a­tion in Europa öffentlich disku­tiert. Das MEK präsen­tiert die Ausstel­lung dazu.

„Läuft“ zeigt eine Geschichte des Prag­ma­tismus und der Utopi­en, des Erfind­ungsre­ich­tums und Aktivis­mus. Dafür ver­sam­melt die Ausstel­lung rund 100 his­torische und brand­neue Men­stru­a­tion­sar­tikel sowie Wer­beanzeigen. Schaubilder, Inter­views und Hands-On-Sta­tio­nen ver­mit­teln den aktuellen Wis­sens­stand. Mit knapp 200 All­t­ags­ge­gen­stän­den, Fotos, Grafiken, Zeitungsar­tikeln und Social-Media-Posts fächert die Ausstel­lung die Diskurse auf, die Men­stru­ierende seit Jahrzehn­ten begleit­en: Es geht um The­men wie Leis­tung, Peri­o­den­ar­mut, Müll, „Nor­mal­ität“, Naturver­bun­den­heit, Stim­mung und einige mehr – und natür­lich um Aktivis­mus! Denn im Zen­trum ste­hen die Stim­men und Erfahrun­gen von Men­stru­ieren­den selb­st. Wir laden dazu ein, ihnen in Inter­views zu lauschen und sich selb­st auszu­tauschen. Fil­mauss­chnitte, Musik und Kunst­werke run­den die Ausstel­lung ab.

Mehr Infos unter http://www.smb.museum/flow.

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CfP for Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on Social Med­i­cine (ECSM) 2025
Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo, Norway

Dead­line: 31st of Jan­u­ary 2025

Details:

We are very excit­ed to announce the open­ing of our call for papers for the first ever ECSM! We are accept­ing indi­vid­ual paper sub­mis­sions, com­plete pan­els formed from 3 papers, round­table sub­mis­sions and con­tri­bu­tions to our «Mak­ing and Doing» session.
Abstracts are due on Jan­u­ary 31st, 2025 at 11:59pm CET. For the full call for papers or to sub­mit an abstract, please go to the conference
web­site. We wel­come abstracts for indi­vid­ual papers and con­tri­bu­tions to pan­els in some way relat­ed to our over­ar­ch­ing theme: Prac­tice. The­o­ry. Action. 

The ECSM will be an are­na for health pro­fes­sion­als with dual train­ing in the social sci­ences or human­i­ties whose work engages one or all of these three modes: prac­tice, the­o­ry, and action. Social sci­ence or human­i­ties schol­ars who see them­selves in the work of social med­i­cine are also wel­come. We seek to ground our con­fer­ence in the shared pur­pose of build­ing healthy futures and invite con­tri­bu­tions that approach prac­tice, the­o­ry, and action with curios­i­ty. In com­ing togeth­er, we hope to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty of schol­ars who strive to address the inter­con­nect­ed chal­lenges that our col­lec­tive health and health sys­tems face as well as sug­gest solu­tions and ini­tia­tives by call­ing upon meth­ods from the health pro­fes­sions, social sci­ences, and the humanities. 

We invite sub­mis­sions on any top­ic at the cross-sec­tion of the health pro­fes­sions and social sci­ence and the human­i­ties, and wel­come a range of dis­ci­pli­nary approach­es, time peri­ods and geo­graph­i­cal con­texts. We par­tic­u­lar­ly encour­age pro­pos­als that address aspects of the con­fer­ence theme – prac­tice, the­o­ry, and action – in the work of con­tem­po­rary social med­i­cine. Abstracts are wel­come from all fields in the health pro­fes­sions, social sci­ences, and human­i­ties, includ­ing inter- and trans-dis­ci­pli­nary projects. 

If you have any ques­tions, please con­tact us at ecsm-contact@helsam.uio.no.
We can­not wait to see you in Oslo in June 2025!

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Dr Ayaz Qureshi, Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh: „Health and cit­i­zen­ship in the polit­i­cal mobil­i­sa­tion of junior doc­tors and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in Pakistan”
LSHTM Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy Seminar
4th Feb­ru­ary 2025, 16.00–17.15gmt
on zoom only: https://lshtm.zoom.us/j/97522728066

„Health and cit­i­zen­ship in the polit­i­cal mobil­i­sa­tion of junior doc­tors and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in Pakistan”

Doc­tor activism in Pak­istan was trig­gered by legal amend­ments over pub­lic sec­tor hos­pi­tal auton­o­my. Doc­tors have seen these reforms as a form of stealth pri­vati­sa­tion which is like­ly to make pub­lic hos­pi­tals less acces­si­ble to the poor. Unlike in the extant research on med­ical mobil­i­sa­tion, Pak­istan has seen doc­tor activists shut­ting down hos­pi­tals, boy­cotting out­pa­tient depart­ments, organ­is­ing sit-ins out­side gov­ern­ment build­ings, and com­ing out on the streets. Such activism shows doc­tors tran­scend­ing their clin­i­cal roles or when they are expect­ed to draw upon their clin­i­cal objec­tiv­i­ty to con­struct them­selves as moral observers diag­nos­ing the ail­ing body of the nation (Bay­ou­mi and Hamdy 2023). For doc­tor-activists, I sug­gest, the clin­i­cal and civic roles may inter­twine in ways that com­pli­cate the con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion of (bio­med­ical) cit­i­zen­ship. This pre­sen­ta­tion is based on pre­lim­i­nary find­ings from my ongo­ing ethno­graph­ic work in Pakistan.

Dr Ayaz Qureshi is a Senior Lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh, Unit­ed King­dom. He is the author of ‘AIDS in Pak­istan: Bureau­cra­cy, Pub­lic Goods and NGOs’, which is the first full-length study of HIV/AIDS work in rela­tion to gov­ern­ment and NGOs. He has writ­ten exten­sive­ly of on health and devel­op­ment in Pak­istan. A full list can be found at his uni­ver­si­ty pro­file page: https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/staff/ayaz-qureshi#publications. He is cur­rent­ly lead­ing a Well­come Trust fund­ed project on the role of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in health pol­i­cy in Pakistan. 

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Glob­al Sem­i­nar on Genet­ics, Pan­demics and Society
Edin­burgh, UK

Please con­sid­er join­ing us next sum­mer in Edin­burgh, Scot­land for a Glob­al Sem­i­nar on „Genet­ics, Pan­demics and Soci­ety.” Co-taught by UCSD Pro­fes­sors Daniel Navon (Soci­ol­o­gy) and Claire Eding­ton (His­to­ry), this Glob­al Sem­i­nar intro­duces stu­dents to new ways of think­ing about the world of genet­ics and pub­lic health in one of Europe’s most beau­ti­ful and dynam­ic cap­i­tals. In addi­tion to explor­ing the city, you will hear from world-lead­ing experts at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh, and par­tic­i­pate in an orga­nized trip to the Scot­tish Highlands. 

For more infor­ma­tion, check out this link or feel free to con­tact Pro­fes­sor Navon (dnavon@ucsd.edu) or Pro­fes­sor Eding­ton (cedington@ucsd.edu) direct­ly. This Glob­al Sem­i­nar is open to stu­dents on any UC cam­pus, and the cours­es offered ful­fill many major and minor require­ments as well as a UCSD DEI require­ment. It will run in Sum­mer Ses­sion I 2025.

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Doc­tor­al work­shop „Com­pos­ing Coex­is­tence: Chal­lenges in Research on More-than-Human Health”
20–21 Feb 2025
Bern­hard Nocht Insti­tute for Trop­i­cal Med­i­cine in Hamburg
Orga­nized by the research group Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy at the BNITM

Envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters and the (re-)emergence of infec­tious dis­eases require human health to be con­sid­ered in rela­tion to the health of ani­mals and the envi­ron­ment. A grow­ing num­ber of social sci­en­tists inves­ti­gate mul­ti­species con­tact zones and how these are bound up with anthro­pogenic process­es, such as cli­mate change, land use, resource exploita­tion, pol­lu­tion and tox­i­c­i­ty. Their stud­ies have had an enor­mous impact on the devel­op­ment of bioso­cial approach­es to mul­ti­species relations.

Anthro­po­log­i­cal ambi­tions to com­pose coex­is­tence in a sen­si­tive way are high­er than ever. How­ev­er, mul­ti­species researchers face sev­er­al chal­lenges and bar­ri­ers, for exam­ple with regard to inter- or trans­dis­ci­pli­nary work. While empha­siz­ing the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of humans, ani­mals and the envi­ron­ment, con­cepts like ‘One Health’ or ‘Plan­e­tary Health’ ulti­mate­ly revolve around ques­tions of human health and well-being. As a result, anthro­pocen­tric and human excep­tion­al­ist approach­es are often pro­mot­ed, neglect­ing the per­spec­tives and needs of non-human beings. How can social sci­en­tists debunk such approach­es? How can we ensure that we do not repro­duce these per­spec­tives? How can we address issues of trans­la­tion, advo­ca­cy and agency con­cern­ing non-human beings?

With this work­shop, we seek to address doc­tor­al researchers from the social sci­ences and human­i­ties with a keen inter­est in the study of more-than-human health. Over two days, we will present and dis­cuss our research projects, and engage in cre­ative exer­cis­es con­sid­er­ing cur­rent debates on mul­ti­species method­olo­gies and relat­ed obsta­cles. Fur­ther­more, we are delight­ed that Gior­gio Broc­co (Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na) will give a talk on chem­i­cal­i­ty and tox­i­c­i­ty in the plan­ta­tion world of the French Caribbean.

We warm­ly wel­come appli­ca­tions from doc­tor­al stu­dents who are at an ear­ly stage of their research or in the post-field­work phase. As ear­ly-career researchers, our aim is to cre­ate a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment where we can strength­en our research top­ics and con­nect with researchers who share an inter­est in explor­ing the entan­gle­ments between human, ani­mal and envi­ron­men­tal health.

The work­shop will be held in Eng­lish. If you would like to par­tic­i­pate, please send a descrip­tion of your research project (max. 750 words) and your aca­d­e­m­ic CV to vivien.barth(at)bnitm.de or to erik.zillmann(at)bnitm.de by 30 Sep­tem­ber 2024.

2025_BNITM_Workshop_Composing Coexistence_Flyer‑1

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Call For Papers
Health Activism: Insti­gat­ing Change in Sys­tems of Care
Host­ed by Dr. Natashe Lemos Dekker and Dr. Maria Hagan
Cen­tre for Social Sci­ence in Glob­al Health, Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam (UvA)
Thurs­day 20th & Fri­day 21st of Feb­ru­ary 2025 

Cracks and gaps in our health care sys­tems have been increas­ing­ly exposed in recent years, both in terms of these sys­tems’ capac­i­ty and in terms of restric­tions regard­ing whom they cater to and how. These frail­ties have been empha­sised in moments of cri­sis such as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but also emerge out of shift­ing polit­i­cal land­scapes which seek to restrict the rights of women, asy­lum seek­ers and peo­ple with a dis­abil­i­ty, among many oth­ers. Against this socio-polit­i­cal back­drop, revived and new­ly emerg­ing forms of health activism can be dis­tin­guished. In many coun­tries around the world, health care pro­fes­sion­als, infor­mal care­givers, and those in need of care are active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in move­ments and col­lec­tive actions, to address injus­tices and exclu­sion, and to fill the gaps in exist­ing health care systems.
This work­shop seeks to spark con­ver­sa­tion around acts of care and social protest, pay­ing close atten­tion to how pro­fes­sion­al and infor­mal care­givers (rang­ing from doc­tors and nurs­es to patients, fam­i­lies and sol­i­dar­i­ty actors) engage in forms of activism and gal­vanise move­ments to address health con­cerns and stim­u­late change in (pub­lic) health sys­tems. We are inter­est­ed in how health activism move­ments come into being in dif­fer­ent glob­al con­texts, and how they impact (strength­en or inter­fere with) ver­nac­u­lar modes of cop­ing with ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty, injury and loss. Togeth­er, we will inter­ro­gate how health activism impacts nation­al health poli­cies and sys­tems, and how such ini­tia­tives trav­el beyond geo­graph­i­cal boundaries. 

As part of the event, med­ical and envi­ron­men­tal anthro­pol­o­gist Dr. Alex Nad­ing will join us as a keynote speak­er. He will give a pub­lic lec­ture on Thurs­day the 20th of Feb­ru­ary between 15:00 and 17.00. Dr. Nad­ing is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the author of Mos­qui­to Trails: Ecol­o­gy, Health, and the Pol­i­tics of Entan­gle­ment (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press 2014) and of The Kid­ney and the Cane: Plan­e­tary Health and Plan­ta­tion Labor in Nicaragua, which will be pub­lished with Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press in 2025. keynote speak­er. He will give a pub­lic lec­ture on Thurs­day the 20th of Feb­ru­ary between 15:00 and 17.00. Dr. Nad­ing is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the author of Mos­qui­to Trails: Ecol­o­gy, Health, and the Pol­i­tics of Entan­gle­ment (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press 2014) and of The Kid­ney and the Cane: Plan­e­tary Health and Plan­ta­tion Labor in Nicaragua, which will be pub­lished with Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press in 2025.

By bring­ing exam­ples of health activism ini­tia­tives from dif­fer­ent con­texts into con­ver­sa­tion, we aim to shed light on the dif­fer­ent ways in which these move­ments are sparked, how they oper­ate and insti­gate change. The mul­ti-sit­ed think­ing devel­oped through­out the work­shop will form the basis for a con­crete dis­cus­sion on how col­lab­o­ra­tive knowl­edge-build­ing might stim­u­late practice. 

Papers may include, but are not lim­it­ed to, the fol­low­ing top­ics (all region­al focus­es are welcome): 

– Grass­roots ini­tia­tives pro­vid­ing (health)care to under-resourced areas and under­served communities
– Con­tem­po­rary or his­tor­i­cal stud­ies of social move­ments around issues of health inequal­i­ty and disability
– Inter­sec­tions of health, (in)justice, and the emer­gence of social movements
– Prac­tices of “patient”-led advo­ca­cy and activism
– Prac­tices of care and advo­ca­cy by pro­fes­sion­al care providers with­in spaces of care (hos­pi­tals, clin­ics, health cen­tres, homes, safehouses…) 

We will ask par­tic­i­pants to cir­cu­late short papers before the work­shop, so we can famil­iarise our­selves with each other’s work ahead of time. The work­shop will be organ­ised in the­mat­ic ses­sions deter­mined accord­ing to the papers we receive, and each par­tic­i­pant will short­ly present their work (15–20 min­utes) fol­lowed by com­ments and dis­cus­sion. In sum, the work­shop will map diverse forms of health activism by bring­ing togeth­er a selec­tion of local­ized accounts. Hon­ing in on the polit­i­cal lay­ered­ness of glob­al health poli­cies and prac­tices, it will shed light on the poten­tial val­ue for glob­al health pro­grammes to engage with local-lev­el ini­tia­tives. These con­ver­sa­tions will also form the basis for an online publication. 

If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing part in the work­shop, please send an abstract (max. 200 words) of the paper you would like to con­tribute to the work­shop. Please send this to Maria Hagan (m.h.hagan@uva.nl) and Natashe Lemos Dekker (n.lemosdekker@uva.nl) by Mon­day the 25th of Novem­ber 2024. Appli­cants will be noti­fied of accep­tance by Mon­day the 2nd of Decem­ber 2024.
Lunch will be pro­vid­ed on both days of the work­shop. Trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion costs, how­ev­er, unfor­tu­nate­ly can­not be covered.
This event is sup­port­ed by a 2024 Social Sci­ence in Glob­al Health (SSGH) small grant. 

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CfP Work­shop on „Health Activism: Insti­gat­ing Change in Sys­tems of Care”
20th & 21st of Feb­ru­ary 2025
Cen­tre for Social Sci­ence in Glob­al Health, Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam (UvA)
Host­ed by Dr. Natashe Lemos Dekker and Dr. Maria Hagan 

Details:
Cracks and gaps in our health care sys­tems have been increas­ing­ly exposed in recent years, both in terms of these sys­tems’ capac­i­ty and in terms of restric­tions regard­ing whom they cater to and how. These frail­ties have been empha­sised in moments of cri­sis such as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but also emerge out of shift­ing polit­i­cal land­scapes which seek to restrict the rights of women, asy­lum seek­ers and peo­ple with a dis­abil­i­ty, among many oth­ers. Against this socio-polit­i­cal back­drop, revived and new­ly emerg­ing forms of health activism can be dis­tin­guished. In many coun­tries around the world, health care pro­fes­sion­als, infor­mal care­givers, and those in need of care are active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in move­ments and col­lec­tive actions, to address injus­tices and exclu­sion, and to fill the gaps in exist­ing health care systems.
This work­shop seeks to spark con­ver­sa­tion around acts of care and social protest, pay­ing close atten­tion to how pro­fes­sion­al and infor­mal care­givers (rang­ing from doc­tors and nurs­es to patients, fam­i­lies and sol­i­dar­i­ty actors) engage in forms of activism and gal­vanise move­ments to address health con­cerns and stim­u­late change in (pub­lic) health sys­tems. We are inter­est­ed in how health activism move­ments come into being in dif­fer­ent glob­al con­texts, and how they impact (strength­en or inter­fere with) ver­nac­u­lar modes of cop­ing with ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty, injury and loss. Togeth­er, we will inter­ro­gate how health activism impacts nation­al health poli­cies and sys­tems, and how such ini­tia­tives trav­el beyond geo­graph­i­cal boundaries. 

As part of the event, med­ical and envi­ron­men­tal anthro­pol­o­gist Dr. Alex Nad­ing will join us as a keynote speak­er. He will give a pub­lic lec­ture on Thurs­day the 20th of Feb­ru­ary between 15:00 and 17.00. Dr. Nad­ing is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the author of Mos­qui­to Trails: Ecol­o­gy, Health, and the Pol­i­tics of Entan­gle­ment (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press 2014) and of The Kid­ney and the Cane: Plan­e­tary Health and Plan­ta­tion Labor in Nicaragua, which will be pub­lished with Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press in 2025.

By bring­ing exam­ples of health activism ini­tia­tives from dif­fer­ent con­texts into con­ver­sa­tion, we aim to shed light on the dif­fer­ent ways in which these move­ments are sparked, how they oper­ate and insti­gate change. The mul­ti-sit­ed think­ing devel­oped through­out the work­shop will form the basis for a con­crete dis­cus­sion on how col­lab­o­ra­tive knowl­edge-build­ing might stim­u­late practice. 

Papers may include, but are not lim­it­ed to, the fol­low­ing top­ics (all region­al focus­es are welcome): 

· Grass­roots ini­tia­tives pro­vid­ing (health)care to under-resourced areas and under­served communities 

· Con­tem­po­rary or his­tor­i­cal stud­ies of social move­ments around issues of health inequal­i­ty and disability 

· Inter­sec­tions of health, (in)justice, and the emer­gence of social movements 

· Prac­tices of “patient”-led advo­ca­cy and activism 

· Prac­tices of care and advo­ca­cy by pro­fes­sion­al care providers with­in spaces of care (hos­pi­tals, clin­ics, health cen­tres, homes, safehouses…) 

We will ask par­tic­i­pants to cir­cu­late short papers before the work­shop, so we can famil­iarise our­selves with each other’s work ahead of time. The work­shop will be organ­ised in the­mat­ic ses­sions deter­mined accord­ing to the papers we receive, and each par­tic­i­pant will short­ly present their work (15–20 min­utes) fol­lowed by com­ments and dis­cus­sion. In sum, the work­shop will map diverse forms of health activism by bring­ing togeth­er a selec­tion of local­ized accounts. Hon­ing in on the polit­i­cal lay­ered­ness of glob­al health poli­cies and prac­tices, it will shed light on the poten­tial val­ue for glob­al health pro­grammes to engage with local-lev­el ini­tia­tives. These con­ver­sa­tions will also form the basis for an online publication. 

If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing part in the work­shop, please send an abstract (max. 200 words) of the paper you would like to con­tribute to the work­shop. Please send this to Maria Hagan (m.h.hagan@uva.nl) and Natashe Lemos Dekker (n.lemosdekker@uva.nl) by Mon­day the 25th of Novem­ber 2024. Appli­cants will be noti­fied of accep­tance by Mon­day the 2nd of Decem­ber 2024. 

Lunch will be pro­vid­ed on both days of the work­shop. Trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion costs, how­ev­er, unfor­tu­nate­ly can­not be covered. 

This event is sup­port­ed by a 2024 Social Sci­ence in Glob­al Health (SSGH) small grant. 

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Call for papers in the „Med­ical Cri­tique in Hash­tags? Chron­ic Health Con­di­tions on Social Media” at the STS-Hub
Berlin
11–14.03.2025
Dead­line: 31.10.2024

The aim of the pan­el to dis­cuss the role of social media as a plat­form for gen­er­at­ing aware­ness and form­ing inter­est groups around med­ical cri­tique. In par­tic­u­lar, the pan­el wants to explore chron­ic health con­di­tions that receive inad­e­quate atten­tion with­in the estab­lished (bio)medical sys­tem, such as ADHD and autism in women, endometrio­sis, ME/CFS, and/or Long COVID. 

More details

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Tagung „Soziale Ungle­ich­heit und Ernährung“
17. & 18.03.2025
Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung
Apos­telnkloster 13–15, 50672 Köln
Raum: Auditorium

Pro­gramm-_vor­laeu­fig_

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„trans­mor­tale XIV”
21. März 2025 von 9 – 19.30 Uhr und 22. März 2025 von 10 – 17 Uhr.

Teil­nah­me­beitrag: 50,- Euro / ermäßigt 25,- Euro (Studierende).
Am ersten Tag ist für die in der Teilnehmer*innenzahl lim­i­tierten Work­shops inklu­sive Verpfle­gung eine sep­a­rate Anmel­dung unter der E‑Mail-Adresse: lbachma9@smail.uni-koeln.de erforderlich.Für den zweit­en Tag kann für 30,- Euro pro Per­son Verpfle­gung (Mit­tagsim­biss, Kuchen, Obst, Getränke) gestellt wer­den. Ohne diese ist Selb­stver­sorgung erforderlich.

Anmel­dung bis zum 18. März 2025
Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft Fried­hof und Denkmal e. V.

Zen­tralin­sti­tut und Muse­um für Sepulkralkultur
Wein­bergstraße 25 – 27, 34117 Kassel
E‑Mail: info@sepulkralmuseum.de
Tel.: 0561 9189340

„trans­mor­tale”

Neue Forschun­gen zum The­ma Tod
Die trans­mor­tale XIV ist eine zweitägige Präsen­zver­anstal­tung, die jährlich im Muse­um für Sepulkralkul­tur in Kas­sel stattfindet.
Der erste Tag, der 21. März, wid­met sich dem The­ma „Tod und Trauer in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur“.
Der zweite Tag, der 22. März, bietet eine the­ma­tisch offene Plat­tform für Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen, um ihre Forschung­spro­jek­te oder Qual­i­fika­tion­sar­beit zum The­ma Tod vorzustellen, was eine bre­ite Vielfalt an Per­spek­tiv­en und wis­senschaftlichen Ansätzen ermöglicht.
Die Auseinan­der­set­zung mit dem Tod begleit­et die Men­schheit seit Anbe­ginn ihrer Tage. Er ist ein Prob­lem der Leben­den, und deshalb weisen alle wis­senschaftlichen Diszi­plinen, die sich mit dem (Zusammen-)Leben der Men­schen befassen, auch Berührungspunk­te zu Ster­ben und Tod, zu Abschied und Gedenken, zur Endlichkeit und zu den Ver­suchen auf, das Unver­mei­dliche zu bewältigen.
Die The­men Ster­ben, Tod und Trauer sind in den let­zten Jahren ver­stärkt in den Fokus der fächerüber­greifend­en Forschung gerückt. Diszi­plinen wie Archäolo­gie, Eth­nolo­gie, Kul­tur­an­thro­polo­gie oder Kun­st­geschichte beschäfti­gen sich seit jeher mit Gräbern und Begräb­nis­plätzen. Inzwis­chen inter­essieren sich jedoch ganz unter­schiedliche Diszi­plinen für den Wan­del der Trauer- und Bestat­tungskul­tur, zum Beispiel die Sozi­olo­gie, Psy­cholo­gie, Geschichte, Philoso­phie, Medizin(-Ethik), Gesund­heits- und Pflegewis­senschaften, Geschlechter­forschung sowie Kul­tur- und Medienwissenschaften.
Der Work­shop trans­mor­tale bietet eine Plat­tform für das Forschungs­feld Ster­ben, Tod und Trauer. Er richtet sich an junge Wissenschaftler*innen, die sich in der Abschlussphase ein­er Qual­i­fika­tion­ss­chrift befind­en, aber auch an Post­docs und andere inter­essierte Forschende. Ihnen wird die Möglichkeit gegeben, neue Per­spek­tiv­en zu entwer­fen und sie in größer­er Runde zu disku­tieren. Ziel ist eine inter­diszi­plinäre Auseinan­der­set­zung, die empirische und the­o­retis­che Ansätze zusam­men­führt und einen inten­siv­en Aus­tausch eröffnet. Auf diese Weise kön­nen aktuelle Fra­gen und Ergeb­nisse inter­diszi­plinär beleuchtet und inhaltliche Gemein­samkeit­en trans­diszi­plinär zusam­menge­führt werden.

Pro­gramm Fre­itag, 21. März 2025

9.00 – 10.30 Uhr Inputvortrag:
Prof. Dr. Lena Hoff­mann, Biele­feld / Prof. Dr. Maren Con­rad, Köln: „Tod und Ster­ben in der Kinder- und Jugendlit­er­atur in his­torisch­er Per­spek­tive und in der Gegenwart“.
Teil­nahme kostenlos.
11.00 – 15.00 Uhr und
15.00 Uhr – 18.00 Uhr Geschlossene Ver­anstal­tung: Work­shop I & II: (je 3‑stündig / im Wechsel)
(lim­i­tierte Teil­nah­memöglichkeit, geson­derte Anmel­dung erforder­lich bei Lea Bach­mann lbachma9@smail.uni-koeln.de, Teil­nahme kostenlos.)
Dr. Franziska Trapp: „Tod und The­ater – Insze­nierung und Trans­for­ma­tion von Bilder­büch­ern zu szenis­chem Spiel im Unterricht“.
Ayse Bosse: „Das Poten­zial von Kinder- und Bilder­büch­ern für Trauer­ar­beit und Trauer­be­gleitung im Unterricht“.

12.00 – 13.00 Uhr Mittagspause
18.00 – 19.30 Uhr Öffentliche Veranstaltung

„Krankheit und Tod im Com­ic“. Lesung am Abend mit der Comick­ün­st­lerin Josephine Mark zu „Murr“ und „Trip mit Tropf“.
Ein­tritt frei.

Pro­gramm Sam­stag, 22. März 2025

10.00 – 10.15 Uhr Begrüßung und Einführung

Pan­el 1
10.15 – 10.45 Uhr Han­nah Rabea Wag­n­er, Det­mold: „Darstel­lungsweisen von Tod und Trauer oder: Die Frage nach der Muse­al­isierung von etwas nicht Sicht­barem“. Diskussion
10.45 – 11.15 Uhr Jen­nifer Pluskat, Halle: „Erin­nerungskör­p­er. Die Trans­for­ma­tion humanoi­der Werk­stoffe zu Trauer­arte­fak­ten am Beispiel von Memo­ri­alschmuck“. Diskussion
11.15 – 11.45 Uhr Pause

Pan­el 2
11.45 – 12.15 Uhr Natali­ia Chub, Berlin: „Keno­taph als eine Strate­gie der Ver­lust­be­wäl­ti­gung bei unein­deutigem Ver­lust“. Diskussion
12.15 – 12.45 Uhr Gero Kopp, Bochum: „Zusam­men­halt über den Tod hin­aus (?) – Ein­blicke in Trauerkul­tur im Fußball“. Diskussion
12.45 – 14.00 Uhr Mittagspause

Pan­el 3
14.00 – 14.30 Uhr Isabell A. Meske, Han­nover: „Mit dem Tod im Dia­log: Lit­er­arische Abschied­snar­ra­tive von Märchen bis zur Gegen­wart­slit­er­atur“. Diskussion
14.30 – 15.00 Uhr Lau­ra M. Lewald-Rom­ahn, Old­en­burg: „Koma als Sujet der Sterblichkeit in der Kinder- und Jugendlit­er­atur – eine ver­gle­ichende Unter­suchung aus­gewählter Ganzschriften“. Diskussion
15.00 – 15.30 Uhr Pause

Pan­el 4
15.30 – 16.00 Uhr Karen Klotz, Esslin­gen: „Moralis­che Belas­tung von Pflege­fach­per­so­n­en im Kon­text von Suizidas­sis­tenz und Tötung auf Ver­lan­gen – Ergeb­nisse ein­er sys­tem­a­tis­chen Über­sicht­sar­beit“. Diskussion
16.00 – 16.30 Uhr Ele­na Guß­mann, Berlin: „Der Tod als Gle­ich­mach­er, Schlussstein, Trennnadel. Ein philosophis­ch­er Blick auf das ‚doing death‘ von Gesellschaften“. Diskussion
16.30 – 17.00 Uhr Abschlussdiskussion

Die trans­mor­tale XIV ist ein Pro­jekt in Koop­er­a­tion zwis­chen dem Zen­tralin­sti­tut und Muse­um für Sepulkralkul­tur, Kassel
der Uni­ver­sität Ham­burg, Insti­tut für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft
und der Stiftung Deutsche Bestattungskultur.

Dem Arbeit­skreis trans­mor­tale XIV gehören an: Dr. Dirk Pörschmann (Kas­sel), Dr. Dag­mar Kuh­le (Kas­sel), Prof. Dr. Nor­bert Fis­ch­er (Ham­burg), Dr. Simon Wal­ter (Düs­sel­dorf), Kar­la Alex (Hei­del­berg), Dr. Moritz Buch­n­er, Stephan Hadraschek M.A., Jan Möllers M.A. (alle: Berlin).

In diesem Jahr find­et sie in Zusam­me­nar­beit mit der Fakultät für Lin­guis­tik und Lit­er­atur­wis­senschaft der Uni­ver­sität in Biele­feld, Pro­fes­sorin Dr. Lena Hoff­mann und der Arbeitsstelle für Kinder- und Jugendme­di­en­forschung (ALEKI) der Uni­ver­sität zu Köln, Pro­fes­sorin Dr. Maren Con­rad, statt.

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Revi­tal­iz­ing Applied Anthropology
85th Annu­al Meeting
March 25–29, 2025
Hilton Port­land Down­town Port­land, OR

The SfAA Annu­al Meet­ing pro­vides an invalu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty for schol­ars, prac­tic­ing social sci­en­tists, and stu­dents from a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines and orga­ni­za­tions to dis­cuss their work and brain­storm for the future. It is more than just a con­fer­ence: it’s a rich place to trade ideas, meth­ods, and prac­ti­cal solu­tions, as well as enter the life­world of oth­er pro­fes­sion­als. SfAA mem­bers come from a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines — anthro­pol­o­gy, soci­ol­o­gy, eco­nom­ics, busi­ness, plan­ning, med­i­cine, nurs­ing, law, and oth­er relat­ed social/behavioral sci­ences. Make 2025 the year you’ll spend a few days pre­sent­ing, learn­ing, and net­work­ing in Port­land, OR, with the SfAA.

More info

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10th Inte­grat­ed His­to­ry and Phi­los­o­phy of Sci­ence conference
27–29 March 2025
Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Pasade­na, California

The Com­mit­tee for Inte­grat­ed His­to­ry and Phi­los­o­phy of Sci­ence invites the sub­mis­sion of abstracts for indi­vid­ual papers and “light­ning talks” for &HPS10, the 10th con­fer­ence in the series Inte­grat­ed His­to­ry and Phi­los­o­phy of Sci­ence. We seek con­tri­bu­tions that gen­uine­ly inte­grate his­tor­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal analy­ses of sci­ence (i.e., the phys­i­cal sci­ences, life sci­ences, cog­ni­tive sci­ences, and social sci­ences) or that dis­cuss method­olog­i­cal issues sur­round­ing the prospects and chal­lenges of inte­grat­ing his­to­ry and phi­los­o­phy of sci­ence. For infor­ma­tion about the Com­mit­tee for Inte­grat­ed His­to­ry and Phi­los­o­phy of Sci­ence and pre­vi­ous con­fer­ences, see http://integratedhps.org/.

Keynote speak­ers: Lydia Pat­ton (Vir­ginia Tech), Mar­ius Stan (Boston College)

Please note that &HPS10 does not run par­al­lel ses­sions and, giv­en the num­ber of slots avail­able, does not accept sym­po­sium sub­mis­sions. In addi­tion to con­tributed papers (20 min­utes + 10 min­utes of ques­tions), &HPS10 will also fea­ture a com­bi­na­tion of 10-minute light­ning talks fol­lowed by a com­mu­nal ses­sion with ‘dis­cus­sion sta­tions’ for the light­ning talk pre­sen­ters. For this forum, we wel­come sub­mis­sions that are more explorato­ry, works in progress, try out new ideas, and so on. Each pre­sen­ter may appear on the final pro­gram only once.

All pro­pos­als (whether for a con­tributed paper or light­ning talk) should con­tain a title and an abstract of up to 700 words (includ­ing references). 

Please sub­mit your abstracts to https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/75646/submitter

We have an ongo­ing com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing diver­si­ty and equal­i­ty in our pro­grams. Sub­mis­sions from mem­bers of under­rep­re­sent­ed groups are par­tic­u­lar­ly welcome!

Dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sions: 11:59 pm Any­where on Earth (UTC ‑12) 18 August. Noti­fi­ca­tion date: 31 Octo­ber, 2024.

Please direct any inquiries to Uljana Feest (feest@philos.uni-hannover.de) or Dana Tulodziec­ki (dtulodzi@purdue.edu)

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Call for Papers for the 10th Inter­na­tion­al Work­shop on His­tor­i­cal Epis­te­mol­o­gy: „Inter­sec­tions of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Research and Psy­chother­a­peu­tic Practices”
27–29 March 2025
IMGWF, Uni­ver­sität zu Lübeck

Orga­nized by:
EpistHist Research Net­work on the His­to­ry and the Meth­ods of His­tor­i­cal Epistemology
https://episthist.hypotheses.org/

Open­ing lecture:
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger

Ten years ago, the Research Net­work on the His­to­ry and Meth­ods of His­tor­i­cal Epis­te­mol­o­gy, EpistHist, began in Paris with its inau­gur­al work­shop on épisté­molo­gie his­torique. These work­shops have turned into an annu­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss key issues in the his­to­ry and phi­los­o­phy of sci­ences and engage in con­tem­po­rary method­olog­i­cal debates. By mobi­liz­ing his­tor­i­cal epis­te­mol­o­gy as a broad approach, the work­shops medi­ate between 20th-cen­tu­ry French epis­te­mol­o­gy and its recent renew­al in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world. The abstracts and pro­grams of past edi­tions are avail­able on the research network’s web­site: https://episthist.hypotheses.org/.

After edi­tions in Paris, Dijon, and Venice, EpistHist is now cross­ing the Rhine and the Elbe rivers to cel­e­brate its first decade at the Insti­tute for the His­to­ry of Med­i­cine and Sci­ence Stud­ies, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lübeck, where Hans-Jörg Rhein­berg­er once con­ceived tools for inter­lac­ing the his­to­ry of sci­ence with phi­los­o­phy through his­tor­i­cal epistemology.

This anniver­sary work­shop will focus on the top­ic of Inter­sec­tions of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Research and Psy­chother­a­peu­tic Prac­tices. Here, we aim to explore which approach­es with­in his­tor­i­cal epis­te­mol­o­gy are most suit­able for inves­ti­gat­ing the pro­duc­tion of knowl­edge and prac­tices relat­ed to the psyche.

Since Gas­ton Bachelard (1984) placed research instru­ments and tech­niques at the core of his epis­te­mo­log­i­cal his­to­ry with the con­cept of phe­nom­e­notech­nique, the role of prac­tices has become cen­tral to under­stand­ing the pro­duc­tion and trans­mis­sion of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge. Com­pared to micro­scopes or par­ti­cle accel­er­a­tors, psy­chol­o­gy and the psy-sci­ences might seem to lack equiv­a­lent phe­nom­e­notech­niques. How­ev­er, at a clos­er look, the psy-sci­ences make wide­spread use of ques­tion­naires, inter­views, pro­to­cols, and oth­er “paper tools” essen­tial for their knowl­edge prac­tices. Mitchell Ash and Thomas Sturm (2007), fol­low­ing Ian Hack­ing (1992) and Hans-Jörg Rhein­berg­er (2017), have espe­cial­ly point­ed to the role of instru­ments of exper­i­men­ta­tion as orga­niz­ers of psy­cho­log­i­cal research practices.

On a cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal lev­el, fol­low­ing Michel Foucault’s (2008) analy­sis of psy-prac­tices as dis­ci­pli­nary prac­tices, schol­ars like Ian Hack­ing (1995, 1998, 2002), Arnold I. David­son (2002), and oth­ers explored the nor­ma­tive effects of psy-sci­ences and psy-prac­tices on sub­jects, sub­jec­tiv­i­ty, and con­cep­tions of self­hood, show­ing how con­cepts and cat­e­gories shape expe­ri­ences, result­ing in new ways of “mak­ing up people.”

Nonethe­less, with the notable excep­tion of some recent works (Marks, 2017; Ros­ner, 2018), inquiries into the his­to­ry of psy-sci­ences have pri­mar­i­ly focused on the pro­duc­tion of psy-knowl­edge, often over­look­ing psy­chother­a­peu­tic prac­tices under the assump­tion that these are mere­ly appli­ca­tions of that knowl­edge. Our work­shop intends to chal­lenge this by explic­it­ly address­ing psy­chother­a­peu­tic prac­tices as equal­ly rel­e­vant for a his­tor­i­cal epis­te­mol­o­gy of psy-sci­ences. We fol­low Georges Canguilhem’s (1974) insight that med­i­cine is not the mere appli­ca­tion of knowl­edge gen­er­at­ed in the life sci­ences but a set of diag­nos­tic and ther­a­peu­tic tech­niques sit­u­at­ed at the cross­roads of dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines and sci­ences. Bor­row­ing from Can­guil­hem, the aim of our work­shop is pre­cise­ly to explore such inter­sec­tions and cross­roads, from exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy to spir­i­tu­al exer­cis­es, and from psy­chi­atric clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tems to psy­chother­a­peu­tic approaches.

We wel­come pro­pos­als explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between sci­en­tif­ic inquiries pro­duc­ing knowl­edge and the tech­ni­cal devel­op­ment of psy­chother­a­peu­tic prac­tices. Key ques­tions to be addressed include, but are not lim­it­ed to:

– What approach with­in his­tor­i­cal epis­te­mol­o­gy helps to bet­ter under­stand the social, polit­i­cal, and nor­ma­tive effects of psy-practices?
– What instru­ments in the psy-field can be con­cep­tu­al­ized as “paper tools” or even phenomenotechniques?
– To what extent and how do cat­e­gories and con­cepts from psy­chother­a­py help cre­ate new “kinds of people”?
– How has the rela­tion­ship between psy­cho­log­i­cal research and psy­chother­a­peu­tic approach­es changed over time?
– How have spe­cif­ic sci­en­tif­ic inquiries shaped dif­fer­ent psy­chother­a­peu­tic practices?
– Did the sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge pro­duced by the psy-sci­ences migrate into psy­chother­a­py, and, if so, how was it trans­lat­ed, trans­formed, and adapt­ed in the process?
– In what ways have psy­chother­a­peu­tic tech­niques con­tributed to psy­cho­log­i­cal research?
– How have dif­fer­ent sci­en­tif­ic find­ings been used to legit­imize psy­chother­a­peu­tic practices?
– What roles have cul­tur­al, insti­tu­tion­al, and polit­i­cal con­texts played in shap­ing psy-sci­ences, psy­chother­a­peu­tic prac­tices, and their interrelations?

Pro­pos­als (500 words, along with a brief bio of the can­di­date) must be sub­mit­ted by Novem­ber 30, 2024, in .doc for­mat to epistemologiehistorique@gmail.com. Noti­fi­ca­tion of accep­tance or rejec­tion will be sent by ear­ly Jan­u­ary 2025. The work­shop will be con­duct­ed in English.

Orga­niz­ing committee:

Car­o­line Angler­aux (iBrain U1253, INSERM de Tours)
Lucie Fab­ry (LIR3S, Uni­ver­sité de Bourgogne)
Lisa Malich (IMGWF, Uni­ver­sität zu Lübeck)
Iván Moya-Diez (IMGWF, Uni­ver­sität zu Lübeck)
Perce­val Pil­lon (IHPST, Uni­ver­sité Paris 1 Pan­théon-Sor­bon­ne/C­NRS)
Mat­teo Vag­el­li (CFS, Uni­ver­sità di Pisa)

This work­shop is fund­ed by:

Deutsche Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft (DFG, Ger­man Research Foun­da­tion) – Project Num­ber 516932573: “The cog­ni­tive rev­o­lu­tion in ther­a­peu­tic prac­tice: adapt­ing sci­en­tif­ic ideals and form­ing sub­jects in Aaron Beck’s cog­ni­tive ther­a­py, 1950–1990.”

With the sup­port of:
IMGWF, Uni­ver­sität zu Lübeck.
IHPST (UMR 8590), Uni­ver­sité Paris 1 Pan­théon-Sor­bon­ne/C­NRS.
LIR3S (UMR7366), Uni­ver­sité de Bourgogne/CNRS.

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Das 42. Stuttgarter Fort­bil­dungssem­i­nar des Insti­tuts für Geschichte der Medi­zin des Bosch Health Cam­pus befasst sich mit Gefühlen und Sin­nen in der Geschichte der Medi­zin. Nachwuchswissenschaftler:innen haben die Möglichkeit, Poten­tiale in diesen Forschungs­feldern in ver­schiede­nen Epochen und Regio­nen auszu­loten und ihre eige­nen Pro­jek­te zu präsentieren.
42. Stuttgarter Fortbildungsseminar

Gefüh­le und Sinne sind keine ahis­torischen Kon­stan­ten, son­dern kul­turell und his­torisch wan­del­bar. Forschungsar­beit­en aus der Sinnes- und der Emo­tion­s­geschichte haben es ein­drück­lich gezeigt: Gefüh­le und Sinne haben und machen Geschichte.

Angst, Liebe, Ekel oder Trauer sind an den jew­eili­gen his­torischen Kon­text rück­ge­bun­den, brin­gen ihn zugle­ich aber auch her­vor. Gefüh­le existieren in einem Span­nungs­feld zwis­chen indi­vidu­eller kör­per­lich­er Erfahrung und gesellschaftlich­er Kon­struk­tion. So gren­zten sich alter­na­tivmedi­zinis­che Akteurs­grup­pen auf dem medi­zinis­chen Markt durch emo­tionale Zuschrei­bun­gen wie ärztliche „Oper­a­tionswut“ und „wis­senschaftliche Kälte“ von der „schul­medi­zinis­chen“ Prax­is ab. Aus patien­tengeschichtlich­er Per­spek­tive sind Gefüh­le und Emo­tio­nen über­aus wichtig, nicht zulet­zt, wenn sie von den gesellschaftlichen Nor­mvorstel­lun­gen abwichen und pathol­o­gisiert wur­den. Auch der Wan­del medi­zinis­ch­er Behand­lungsmeth­o­d­en hat­te Auswirkun­gen auf die Emo­tio­nen von Patient:innen. So ver­schob bspw. die Ein­führung und Ver­bre­itung von Narkoti­ka die Äng­ste der Behan­del­ten von den Schmerzen zu einem Kontrollverlust.

Ger­ade in der Vor­mod­erne spielte die sen­sorische Wahrnehmung bei der Beurteilung von Gesund­heit und Krankheit eine entschei­dende Rolle. Der Gesund­heit­szu­s­tand von Patient:innen kon­nte durch bloßes Anse­hen des Urins während der Harn­schau beurteilt wer­den. Ansteck­ende Krankheit­en sowie das tod­brin­gende Mias­ma kon­nten hinge­gen gerochen wer­den. Doch auch in der Mod­erne blieben Sinne in der Medi­zin zen­tral, beispiel­sweise das Ertas­ten von schmerzen­den Kör­per­re­gio­nen für die Selb­st­di­ag­nose oder das Hören mit Hil­fe eines Stethoskops für die Diag­nose durch medi­zinis­ches Fachpersonal.

Über diese inhaltlichen The­matiken hin­aus lässt sich aber auch grund­sät­zlich über die Chan­cen und Her­aus­forderun­gen eines emo­tions- oder sin­neshis­torischen Ansatzes für die medi­zingeschichtliche Forschung nach­denken. Wie lassen sich die bei­den eigen­ständi­gen und in den let­zten Jahren höchst dynamis­chen Forschungs­felder in einen Dia­log brin­gen? Auf welche begrif­flichen Konzepte und welche Quellen lässt sich zurück­greifen, um die Rolle von Sin­nen und Gefühlen in der Medi­zingeschichte zu untersuchen?

Für das 42. Stuttgarter Fort­bil­dungssem­i­nar 2025 sollen diese Prob­lematiken mit unter­schiedlichen Ansätzen und Meth­o­d­en für ver­schiedene Epochen und Regio­nen beleuchtet werden.

Als Vorschlag und Anre­gung sind fol­gende The­menge­bi­ete denkbar:

Patient:innengefühle: Welche Gefüh­le bracht­en Patient:innen im Laufe der Geschichte mit der medi­zinis­chen Behand­lung in Verbindung? Welchen Ein­fluss hat­te dies auf das Ver­hält­nis von Ärzt:innen, anderen Gesund­heits­berufen und Patient:innen? Lässt sich etwa von ver­schiede­nen „emo­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties“ (Rosen­wein) sprechen?

Geschlecht, Sinn und Gefühl: Inwiefern lassen sich geschlechtsspez­i­fis­che Nor­men, Zuschrei­bun­gen und Deu­tun­gen in Bezug auf Sinne und Gefüh­le in der Medi­zingeschichte feststellen?

Sen­sorik in der Medi­zin: Welche Sinneswahrnehmungen spiel­ten und spie­len bei der Beurteilung von Krankheit und Gesund­heit eine Rolle? Lassen sich epochenüber­greifende Kon­stan­ten und zen­trale Zäsuren aus­machen? Welche Per­spek­tiv­en eröffnet die Sin­nes­geschichte nicht zulet­zt für eine Geschichte der Medi­zin, die über den Men­schen hinausdenkt?

Gefüh­le und Sinne in der Wis­senspro­duk­tion: Welche Rolle spiel­ten men­schliche (und tier­liche) Gefüh­le und Sinne für die Pro­duk­tion von medi­zinis­chem Wis­sen? Inwiefern bee­in­flussen Emo­tio­nen auch die Arbeit von Medi­z­in­his­torik­er: innen?

Pathol­o­gisierung von Gefühlen und Sin­nen: Gefühlsre­gun­gen, die im jew­eili­gen Zeitkon­text von der „Nor­mal­ität“ abwichen, wur­den oft­mals als Krankheit­en gedeutet. Dabei war der Über­gang von „gesund“ zu „krank“ fließend und hing von ganz unter­schiedlichen Fak­toren ab. Welche waren das? Lassen sich für bes­timmte Epochen spez­i­fis­che „Gefühlsregime“ (Red­dy) ausmachen?

Andere, dem The­ma im weitesten Sinne ver­wandte Fragestel­lun­gen und Pro­jek­te sind eben­falls willkommen.

Das Stuttgarter Fort­bil­dungssem­i­nar des Insti­tuts für Geschichte der Medi­zin des Bosch Health Cam­pus unter­schei­det sich von klas­sis­chen Fach­ta­gun­gen. Es ist ein inter­diszi­plinäres Forum für Nachwuchswissenschaftler:innen, dessen zen­trale Anliegen der Aus­tausch und die inhaltliche Auseinan­der­set­zung mit dem The­ma der Tagung vornehm­lich in his­torisch­er Per­spek­tive sind. Der Fokus liegt daher auf inno­v­a­tiv­en method­is­chen Herange­hensweisen, neuen Fragestel­lun­gen und Ideen und weniger auf per­fekt aus­gear­beit­eten Präsen­ta­tio­nen. So dient die Tagung auch der Ver­net­zung von Forschen­den in einem frühen Sta­di­um ihrer Karriere.

Vor Beginn der Tagung wer­den die Abstracts zu den einzel­nen Vorträ­gen an alle Teil­nehmenden ver­sandt, um eine bessere Vor­bere­itung zu ermöglichen. Erwün­scht ist die Anwe­sen­heit während der gesamten Tagung, um inhaltliche Bezüge zwis­chen den Beiträ­gen zu ermöglichen.

Das Sem­i­nar find­et vom 07.04. bis 09.04.2025 in Stuttgart statt.

Ablauf
Die Auswahl der Beiträge, die Gestal­tung des endgülti­gen Pro­gramms und die Mod­er­a­tion der Sek­tio­nen liegen in den Hän­den ein­er Vor­bere­itungs­gruppe (Sara Müller, Tere­sa Schenk, Dirk Mod­ler, Pierre Pfütsch). Die Auswahl der Teil­nehmenden wird durch die Vor­bere­itungs­gruppe anhand anonymisiert­er Vorschläge vorgenommen.

Für jeden Beitrag sind 45 Minuten einge­plant, wobei max. 20 Minuten für den Vor­trag zur Ver­fü­gung ste­hen und 25 Minuten für die Diskus­sion. Bei Arbeits­grup­pen (vorzugsweise zwei Per­so­n­en) erhöht sich das Zeit­bud­get für den Vor­trag und die anschließende Diskus­sion auf eine Stunde. Die Tagungssprache ist Deutsch, einzelne Vorträge kön­nen allerd­ings auch auf Englisch gehal­ten wer­den. Die Teil­nahme wird vom Insti­tut für Geschichte der Medi­zin des Bosch Health Cam­pus finanziert. Dies schließt die Über­nach­tun­gen, gemein­same Mahlzeit­en und Bah­n­reisen 2. Klasse (in Aus­nah­me­fällen gün­stige Flüge) ein. Kosten für eine Anreise per PKW wer­den nicht erstattet.

Anmeldung
Ein Exposé von max. ein­er Seite, aus dem Titel, Fragestel­lung, Meth­o­d­en, ver­wen­dete Quellen und mögliche Thesen/Ergebnisse her­vorge­hen, sowie eine Kurzvi­ta, senden Sie bitte bis zum 12. Jan­u­ar 2025 per E‑Mail (gerne als Word-Datei) an Dr. Pierre Pfütsch pierre.pfuetsch@igm-bosch.de.

Perma­link

Call for papers for the ASA 2025 con­fer­ence „Crit­i­cal Junc­tions: Anthro­pol­o­gy on the Move”
8th-11th of April 2025 in Birm­ing­ham, England.
Pan­el titled „Between Dis­par­i­ties and Neglect: Anthro­po­log­i­cal Approach­es to minor­i­ty health and Wellbeing”
Dead­line for Pan­el propo­si­tions is 23:59 GMT on 18th Novem­ber 2024.

Pan­el description

This pan­el aims to explore the com­plex inter­sec­tions of health, well­be­ing, and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion, focus­ing on how anthro­pol­o­gy, includ­ing crit­i­cal med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy the­o­ries and method­olo­gies, can exam­ine the lived expe­ri­ences of minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing health dis­par­i­ties world­wide. Con­tri­bu­tions will crit­i­cal­ly exam­ine both the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties inher­ent in con­duct­ing research with mar­gin­alised groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly in con­texts where sys­temic neglect, dis­crim­i­na­tion and socio­cul­tur­al fac­tors con­tribute to sig­nif­i­cant inequities in health out­comes. Through ethno­graph­ic stud­ies, com­mu­ni­ty-engaged research, and crit­i­cal analy­sis, the dis­cus­sion will address diverse top­ics, includ­ing access to health­care, men­tal well­be­ing, the impact of his­tor­i­cal trau­ma, and the role of alter­na­tive care prac­tices in pro­mot­ing resilience, among oth­ers. The pan­el is also inter­est­ed in address­ing the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of aca­d­e­m­ic research with vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, engag­ing in a crit­i­cal dia­logue on how to ensure that research prac­tices do not per­pet­u­ate harm and inequal­i­ties but instead con­tribute to social jus­tice and empow­er­ment. By cen­tring the debate on minor­i­ty voic­es and per­spec­tives, this pan­el aims to pro­vide a nuanced under­stand­ing of how anthro­pol­o­gy can help address and mit­i­gate health dis­par­i­ties, high­light­ing both the poten­tial for pos­i­tive change and the respon­si­bil­i­ties that come with such work.

More infor­ma­tion on the Pan­el (Code: P07) and the full pro­gramme for the event can be found here

Call for Papers here

If you have any ques­tions, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us via the web­page plat­form or email. 

Muriel Lamar­que: M.Lamarque@shu.ac.uk

Sadiq Bhanbhro : S.Bhanbhro@shu.ac.uk

Perma­link

CfP for a Pan­el on „Eth­i­cal frame­works, health-seek­ing and care path­ways in super­di­verse environments”
ASA UK con­fer­ence in Birmingham
8–11th April 2025

Short Abstract:

This pan­el explores ethno­graph­i­cal­ly how ethics shapes health-seek­ing behav­iours and how health ser­vices may design care path­ways that accom­mo­date diverse moral world­views. Eth­i­cal frame­works and lived expe­ri­ence ‑espe­cial­ly in sit­u­a­tions of pre­car­i­ty- shape how peo­ple nav­i­gate health services.

Long Abstract

Eth­i­cal frame­works, health-seek­ing and care-path­ways in super­di­verse environments.

To pro­vide ade­quate ser­vices, health providers and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions need for their care path­ways to be adapt­ed to the real­i­ty of health-seek­ing prac­tices. In turn, in super­di­verse envi­ron­ments, advice and health-seek­ing dif­fers between social groups (accord­ing to gen­der, income, race and eth­nic­i­ty, migra­tion sta­tus and so on). In cir­cum­stances of extreme pre­car­i­ty – cost of liv­ing cri­sis, in-pover­ty employ­ment, racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion, etc.- uncer­tain­ty and lived expe­ri­ence play a major role (Mac­Gre­gor et al 2020).

Peo­ple do not behave in a pre­dict­ed lin­ear fash­ion sole­ly accord­ing to their socio-demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics, but rather expe­ri­ence pre­car­i­ous life and deal with emer­gent and unex­pect­ed chal­lenges and pri­or­i­ties of an uncer­tain envi­ron­ment (Al-Moham­mad and Pelu­so 2012). In turn peo­ple prac­tice moral nav­i­ga­tion, adapt­ing and reassess­ing their val­ues, pri­or­i­ties and health deci­sions as their ther­a­peu­tic itin­er­ary unfolds, rather than fol­low­ing fixed path­ways (White and Jha 2021). 

People’s eth­i­cal frame­works – how they behave as eth­i­cal agents, moral­ly bound to oth­ers (their peers, their fam­i­lies, etc.)- shape how peo­ple seek health advice and their deci­sions when engag­ing with health providers and pub­lic ser­vices (Ripoll et al 2022).

This pan­el is seek­ing ethno­graph­ic papers that con­tribute to the fol­low­ing questions:

– How do people’s moral and eth­i­cal demands shape their health-seek­ing practices?
– Do peo­ple face moral conun­drums when decid­ing to make par­tic­u­lar deci­sions in health care or in and how do they
– What role does uncer­tain­ty and emer­gence play in this moral nav­i­ga­tion of health services?
– How do health ser­vice providers take into account people’s moral lives when assess­ing people’s nav­i­ga­tion of health services?
– Can care path­ways be adapt­ed to the dif­fer­ent moral world­views of the peo­ple they wish to sup­port through the health system?

This pan­el will aim to bring togeth­er ethno­graph­ic insights from the field of anthro­pol­o­gy of ethics with applied anthro­pol­o­gy in the con­text of health.

Ref­er­ences:

Al-Moham­mad, H., & Pelu­so, D. (2012). Ethics and the “rough ground” of the every­day: the over­lap­pings of life in postin­va­sion Iraq. HAU: Jour­nal of Ethno­graph­ic The­o­ry, 2(2), 42–58.

Mac­Gre­gor, H., Ripoll, S., & Leach, M. (2020). Dis­ease out­breaks: nav­i­gat­ing uncer­tain­ties in pre­pared­ness and response. Tay­lor and Francis.

Ripoll, S., Ouvri­er, A., Hryn­ick, T., & Schmidt-Sane, M. (2022). Vac­cine Equi­ty in Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Urban Set­tings. A com­par­a­tive analy­sis of local gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty action, con­tex­tu­alised polit­i­cal economies, and moral frame­works in Mar­seille and London

White, S. C., & Jha, S. (2021). Moral nav­i­ga­tion and child fos­ter­ing in Chi­awa, Zam­bia. Africa, 91(2), 249–269.

Perma­link

Eth­i­cal frame­works, health-seek­ing and care-path­ways in super­di­verse environments
Pan­el for the ASA UK con­fer­ence in Birmingham
8–11^th April 2025

We’re aim­ing to bring togeth­er ethno­graph­ic insights from the field of anthro­pol­o­gy of ethics with applied anthro­pol­o­gy in the con­text of health.

Short Abstract

This pan­el explores ethno­graph­i­cal­ly how ethics shapes health-seek­ing behav­iours and how health ser­vices may design care path­ways that accom­mo­date diverse moral world­views. Eth­i­cal frame­works and lived expe­ri­ence ‑espe­cial­ly in sit­u­a­tions of pre­car­i­ty- shape how peo­ple nav­i­gate health services.

Long Abstract

Eth­i­cal frame­works, health-seek­ing and care-path­ways in super­di­verse environments.

To pro­vide ade­quate ser­vices, health providers and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions need for their care path­ways to be adapt­ed to the real­i­ty of health-seek­ing prac­tices.  In turn, in super­di­verse envi­ron­ments, advice and health-seek­ing dif­fers between social groups (accord­ing to gen­der, income, race and eth­nic­i­ty, migra­tion sta­tus and so on). In cir­cum­stances of extreme pre­car­i­ty – cost of liv­ing cri­sis, in-pover­ty employ­ment, racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion, etc.- uncer­tain­ty and lived expe­ri­ence play a major role (Mac­Gre­gor et al 2020).

Peo­ple do not behave in a pre­dict­ed lin­ear fash­ion sole­ly accord­ing to their socio-demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics, but rather expe­ri­ence pre­car­i­ous life and deal with emer­gent and unex­pect­ed chal­lenges and pri­or­i­ties of an uncer­tain envi­ron­ment (Al-Moham­mad and Pelu­so 2012). In turn peo­ple prac­tice moral nav­i­ga­tion, adapt­ing and reassess­ing their val­ues, pri­or­i­ties and health deci­sions as their ther­a­peu­tic itin­er­ary unfolds, rather than fol­low­ing fixed path­ways (White and Jha 2021).

People’s eth­i­cal frame­works – how they behave as eth­i­cal agents, moral­ly bound to oth­ers (their peers, their fam­i­lies, etc.)- shape how peo­ple seek health advice and their deci­sions when engag­ing with health providers and pub­lic ser­vices (Ripoll et al 2022).

This pan­el is seek­ing ethno­graph­ic papers that con­tribute to the fol­low­ing questions:

• How do people’s moral and eth­i­cal demands shape their health-seek­ing practices?
• Do peo­ple face moral conun­drums when decid­ing to make par­tic­u­lar deci­sions in health care or in and how do they
• What role does uncer­tain­ty and emer­gence play in this moral nav­i­ga­tion of health services?
• How do health ser­vice providers take into account people’s moral lives when assess­ing people’s nav­i­ga­tion of health services?
• Can care path­ways be adapt­ed to the dif­fer­ent moral world­views of the peo­ple they wish to sup­port through the health system?

This pan­el will aim to bring togeth­er ethno­graph­ic insights from the field of anthro­pol­o­gy of ethics with applied anthro­pol­o­gy in the con­text of health.

To pro­pose a paper, please do so through the ASA web­site. https://theasa.org/conferences/asa2025/programme#15931

Ref­er­ences

Al-Moham­mad, H., & Pelu­so, D. (2012). Ethics and the “rough ground” of the every­day: the over­lap­pings of life in postin­va­sion Iraq. HAU: Jour­nal of Ethno­graph­ic The­o­ry, 2(2), 42–58.

Mac­Gre­gor, H., Ripoll, S., & Leach, M. (2020). Dis­ease out­breaks: nav­i­gat­ing uncer­tain­ties in pre­pared­ness and response. Tay­lor and Francis.

Ripoll, S., Ouvri­er, A., Hryn­ick, T., & Schmidt-Sane, M. (2022). Vac­cine Equi­ty in Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Urban Set­tings. A com­par­a­tive analy­sis of local gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty action, con­tex­tu­alised polit­i­cal economies, and moral frame­works in Mar­seille and London

White, S. C., & Jha, S. (2021). Moral nav­i­ga­tion and child fos­ter­ing in Chi­awa, Zam­bia. Africa, 91(2), 249–269.

Perma­link

„Eth­i­cal frame­works, health-seek­ing and care-path­ways in super­di­verse environments”
8–11.04.2025
Birm­ing­ham, UK
More Info: https://theasa.org/conferences/asa2025/programme#15931

Perma­link

„Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and policy”
Pan­el at the upcom­ing ASA 2025 con­fer­ence tak­ing place in
8–11 April
Birmingham

Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and pol­i­cy will be a pan­el exam­in­ing the entan­gling of social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion in med­ical research, prac­tice, and pol­i­cy, broad­ly con­ceived (pun intend­ed). We invite anthro­po­log­i­cal works which con­sid­er these rela­tions today, espe­cial­ly via the social repro­duc­tion of kin­ship, par­ent­hood, or tech­nolo­gies of relat­ed­ness. The long abstract with more infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed below.

The dead­line for abstracts is Novem­ber 18th. Abstracts may be sub­mit­ted by fol­low­ing this link.

Con­venors:

Tay­lor Riley (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)
Olga Dolet­skaya (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)

Long abstract:

Bio­log­i­cal and social repro­duc­tion are deeply entan­gled (Rapp and Gins­burg 1991) and repro­duc­tion is always a con­cept on the move. ‘Social repro­duc­tion’ has been tak­en up wide­ly in fem­i­nist research as both the under­val­ued labour that sus­tains human life and the labour that repro­duces social sys­tems and rela­tions. What repro­duc­tion and kin­ship are bio­log­i­cal­ly is co-repro­duced with their legal, eco­nom­ic, and cul­tur­al mean­ings. As assist­ed repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies (ARTs) become, though uneven­ly, more ordi­nary (Franklin 2013), entwined con­cepts of social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion con­tin­ue to travel.

In their close atten­tion to human expe­ri­ences and rela­tions, anthro­po­log­i­cal approach­es, such as bioethnog­ra­phy (Roberts and Sanz 2017), are well-suit­ed to trace these trav­els today. Pop­u­la­tion stud­ies such as birth cohorts are invest­ed in the busi­ness of bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion along­side the social repro­duc­tion of par­tic­i­pa­tion that keeps stud­ies alive. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of ARTs like in vit­ro game­to­ge­n­e­sis will neces­si­tate social­ly repro­duced changes to con­cepts of relat­ed­ness. Repro­duc­tive jus­tice is impli­cat­ed in the above and oth­er examples—how do these social repro­duc­tions deny or grant access to per­son­hood or care, espe­cial­ly for those who are mar­gin­al­ized? Can kin­ship be post-genom­ic in these con­texts, or only elsewhere?

We invite works using ethno­graph­ic meth­ods to dis­cuss bio­log­i­cal and social repro­duc­tion with ref­er­ence to bio­med­ical dis­cours­es and/or insti­tu­tions, health poli­cies, pop­u­la­tion research, and/or the worlds of sci­ence and med­i­cine, broad­ly defined. Papers could e.g. focus on:

• Stud­ies of conception/birth, maternal/infant health, fam­i­lies, and/or parenting
• Genet­ic or epi­ge­net­ic research and/or policies
• Repro­duc­tive health research and/or policies
• ARTs
• Med­ical­ized fer­til­i­ty and/or infertility

Perma­link

Pan­el on „Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and policy”
ASA 2025 con­fer­ence tak­ing place in
8–11 April
Birmingham

Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and pol­i­cy will be a pan­el exam­in­ing the entan­gling of social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion in med­ical research, prac­tice, and pol­i­cy, broad­ly con­ceived (pun intend­ed). We invite anthro­po­log­i­cal works which con­sid­er these rela­tions today, espe­cial­ly via the social repro­duc­tion of kin­ship, par­ent­hood, or tech­nolo­gies of relat­ed­ness. The long abstract with more infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed below.

The dead­line for abstracts is Novem­ber 18th. Abstracts may be sub­mit­ted by fol­low­ing this link: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/asa2025/panel/15950

Pan­el Title:

Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and policy

Con­venors:

Tay­lor Riley (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)
Olga Dolet­skaya (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)

Long abstract:

Bio­log­i­cal and social repro­duc­tion are deeply entan­gled (Rapp and Gins­burg 1991) and repro­duc­tion is always a con­cept on the move. ‘Social repro­duc­tion’ has been tak­en up wide­ly in fem­i­nist research as both the under­val­ued labour that sus­tains human life and the labour that repro­duces social sys­tems and rela­tions. What repro­duc­tion and kin­ship are bio­log­i­cal­ly is co-repro­duced with their legal, eco­nom­ic, and cul­tur­al mean­ings. As assist­ed repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies (ARTs) become, though uneven­ly, more ordi­nary (Franklin 2013), entwined con­cepts of social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion con­tin­ue to travel.

In their close atten­tion to human expe­ri­ences and rela­tions, anthro­po­log­i­cal approach­es, such as bioethnog­ra­phy (Roberts and Sanz 2017), are well-suit­ed to trace these trav­els today. Pop­u­la­tion stud­ies such as birth cohorts are invest­ed in the busi­ness of bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion along­side the social repro­duc­tion of par­tic­i­pa­tion that keeps stud­ies alive. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of ARTs like in vit­ro game­to­ge­n­e­sis will neces­si­tate social­ly repro­duced changes to con­cepts of relat­ed­ness. Repro­duc­tive jus­tice is impli­cat­ed in the above and oth­er examples—how do these social repro­duc­tions deny or grant access to per­son­hood or care, espe­cial­ly for those who are mar­gin­al­ized? Can kin­ship be post-genom­ic in these con­texts, or only elsewhere?

We invite works using ethno­graph­ic meth­ods to dis­cuss bio­log­i­cal and social repro­duc­tion with ref­er­ence to bio­med­ical dis­cours­es and/or insti­tu­tions, health poli­cies, pop­u­la­tion research, and/or the worlds of sci­ence and med­i­cine, broad­ly defined. Papers could e.g. focus on:

- Stud­ies of conception/birth, maternal/infant health, fam­i­lies, and/or parenting
– Genet­ic or epi­ge­net­ic research and/or policies
– Repro­duc­tive health research and/or policies
– ARTs
– Med­ical­ized fer­til­i­ty and/or infertility

Perma­link

Call for paper to the pan­el on the top­ic „Cli­mate change, island change, and well­be­ing in small island communities”
Health, Envi­ron­ment, and AnThro­pol­o­gy (HEAT)
Durham
23 – 24 April 2025
co-organ­ised by Durham and Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ties and spon­sored by the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Soci­ety (RAI)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Pan­el: “Cli­mate change, island change, and well­be­ing in small island communities”

Sur­round­ed by sea, islands have long been seen as remote and iso­lat­ed by neces­si­ty, though island life in prac­tice involves move­ment both out of and back towards the island (Kohn, 2006; Nic Craith, 2020). With­out enough atten­tion being paid to the needs of island com­mu­ni­ties in deci­sion- and pol­i­cy-mak­ing affect­ing them, islands are also fre­quent­ly asso­ci­at­ed with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (Kot­sira, 2021), among oth­ers rais­ing con­cerns about their sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience (Rat­ter, 2017). If island life is already chal­leng­ing as such, what is the fur­ther impact of cli­mate change and cli­mate-induced dis­as­ters on the men­tal health and well­be­ing of islanders, par­tic­u­lar­ly in small island communities?

This pan­el invites papers dis­cussing ethno­graph­ic exam­ples and pri­ma­ry research cov­er­ing aspects such as:

‑Local under­stand­ings of men­tal health and well­be­ing, and whether/how they are impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis and the ways islanders respond to chang­ing circumstances.
Access to men­tal health ser­vices and ser­vice gaps to be addressed so small island pop­u­la­tions fac­ing the by-prod­ucts of cli­mate change are supported.
‑How pre­con­cep­tions of remote­ness and iso­la­tion, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience are chal­lenged by the cir­cum­stances cre­at­ed by the cli­mate crisis
local­ly, and their impact on men­tal health and wellbeing.
‑The role of cli­mate change in con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tions of the future on/of small islands, feel­ings of uncer­tain­ty, and their impact on islanders’ men­tal health and
wellbeing.
‑How the men­tal health and well­be­ing of researchers are affect­ed while doing research on small islands impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis, includ­ing cop­ing mech­a­nisms and
research strategies.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDANCE

The dead­line for sub­mis­sions is 13 Jan­u­ary 2025.

Please sub­mit your paper abstract through the con­fer­ence por­tal here: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/abstract/info

Once you access the portal:

Choose from the drop-down menu the event you wish to attend: Health, Envi­ron­ment, and AnThro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) 2025.
Fill in your per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al details.
Pro­vide the title of the paper you wish to present.
Select talk from the list of pre­sen­ta­tion options.
Upload your paper abstract. Your abstract must me no more than 250 words, and attached as a .doc or .pdf file (max­i­mum upload size 10 MB).
Select from the drop-down menu the title of the pan­el you wish to join: Cli­mate change, island change, and well­be­ing in small island communities.

You do not have to be an RAI or ASA mem­ber to pro­pose a paper, but please note that only papers sub­mit­ted via con­fer­ence por­tal will be considered.
More infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence can be found on the web­site: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/health-environment-and-anthropology-heat-2024

Perma­link

Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthropology
23–24 April 2025
Durham University

As the world is get­ting fuller, faster, hot­ter, and sick­er, HEAT asks how can anthro­pol­o­gists con­tribute to unfold­ing debates around health and envi­ron­ment on a chang­ing and unequal plan­et? In what ways can med­ical and envi­ron­men­tal anthro­pol­o­gy work togeth­er and with oth­er dis­ci­plines, com­mu­ni­ties, and stake­hold­ers to help sup­port the devel­op­ment of knowl­edge and resources for respond­ing to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and glob­al heating?

As envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate trans­form soci­eties and ecolo­gies around the world, it is imper­a­tive that anthro­pol­o­gists con­tin­ue to seek new ways of think­ing and speak­ing among them­selves and with oth­ers about the rela­tion­ships among humans, oth­er-than-humans, the envi­ron­ment, and the plan­et. By exam­in­ing the intri­cate web of inter­de­pen­den­cies between soci­eties, ecosys­tems, and envi­ron­men­tal process­es, anthro­pol­o­gists have an impor­tant role to play in under­stand­ing and address­ing the com­plex chal­lenges faced by our planet.

Pan­el pro­pos­als are invit­ed in the fol­low­ing and relat­ed areas:

• Chang­ing pat­terns and pro­files of health, ill­ness, and dis­ease in response to envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate change
• Chang­ing human and more-than-human entan­gle­ments in rela­tion to envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate change
• Social move­ments and new forms of social­i­ty aris­ing from con­cerns about plan­e­tary health
• Envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, inequal­i­ty, and mar­gin­al­ized communities
• Demo­graph­ic anx­i­eties and the effects of migra­tion, dis­place­ment, and armed con­flict in the con­text of chang­ing environments
• Impacts of cli­mate change on repro­duc­tive health and rights
• Diverse eco­log­i­cal knowl­edges and indige­nous per­spec­tives on plan­e­tary health
• Sus­tain­able food sys­tems, agri­cul­ture, and nutrition
• Urban­iza­tion, glob­al­iza­tion, and the trans­for­ma­tion of human-envi­ron­ment relationships
• Health impacts of extrac­tive indus­tries and resource exploitation
• Eth­i­cal and/or method­olog­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions in plan­e­tary health research and interventions
• Pol­i­cy inter­ven­tions and gov­er­nance for plan­e­tary health
• Tech­no­log­i­cal and design inno­va­tions for improv­ing plan­e­tary health and deal­ing with the health impacts of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and glob­al heating
• Men­tal health and well­be­ing in the con­text of cli­mate change
• Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­nec­tions, includ­ing engage­ment with the Over­laps and con­tention between the frame­works of Plan­e­tary Health, Glob­al Health, and One Health.

Pan­el pro­pos­als should include a title and 250 word abstract. The dead­line is Sep­tem­ber 2024. A Call for Papers will then follow.

To sub­mit a pan­el abstract, please fol­low this link: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/health-environment-and-anthropology-heat-2024

Email the con­fer­ence organ­is­ers at anthro.heat.conference@gmail.com

Perma­link

Call for Pan­els „Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthropology”
23–24 April 2025
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty in UK
Orga­nized by the The Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­ty of Durham & Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh present

As the world is get­ting fuller, faster, hot­ter, and sick­er, HEAT asks how can anthro­pol­o­gists con­tribute to unfold­ing debates around health and envi­ron­ment on a chang­ing and unequal plan­et? In what ways can med­ical and envi­ron­men­tal anthro­pol­o­gy work togeth­er and with oth­er dis­ci­plines, com­mu­ni­ties, and stake­hold­ers to help sup­port the devel­op­ment of knowl­edge and resources for respond­ing to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and glob­al heating?

As envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate trans­form soci­eties and ecolo­gies around the world, it is imper­a­tive that anthro­pol­o­gists con­tin­ue to seek new ways of think­ing and speak­ing among them­selves and with oth­ers about the rela­tion­ships among humans, oth­er-than-humans, the envi­ron­ment, and the plan­et. By exam­in­ing the intri­cate web of inter­de­pen­den­cies between soci­eties, ecosys­tems, and envi­ron­men­tal process­es, anthro­pol­o­gists have an impor­tant role to play in under­stand­ing and address­ing the com­plex chal­lenges faced by our planet.

Pan­el pro­pos­als are invit­ed in the fol­low­ing and relat­ed areas:

Chang­ing pat­terns and pro­files of health, ill­ness, and dis­ease in response to envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate change

• Chang­ing human and more-than-human entan­gle­ments in rela­tion to envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate change
• Social move­ments and new forms of social­i­ty aris­ing from con­cerns about plan­e­tary health
• Envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, inequal­i­ty, and mar­gin­al­ized communities
  Demo­graph­ic anx­i­eties and the effects of migra­tion, dis­place­ment, and armed con­flict in the con­text of chang­ing environments
• Impacts of cli­mate change on repro­duc­tive health and rights
  Diverse eco­log­i­cal knowl­edges and indige­nous per­spec­tives on plan­e­tary health
  Sus­tain­able food sys­tems, agri­cul­ture, and nutrition
• Urban­iza­tion, glob­al­iza­tion, and the trans­for­ma­tion of human-envi­ron­ment relationships
• Health impacts of extrac­tive indus­tries and resource exploitation
  Eth­i­cal and/or method­olog­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions in plan­e­tary health research and interventions
• Pol­i­cy inter­ven­tions and gov­er­nance for plan­e­tary health
  Tech­no­log­i­cal and design inno­va­tions for improv­ing plan­e­tary health and deal­ing with the health impacts of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and glob­al heating
  Men­tal health and well­be­ing in the con­text of cli­mate change
• Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­nec­tions, includ­ing engage­ment with the Over­laps and con­tention between the frame­works of Plan­e­tary Health, Glob­al Health, and One Health.

Pan­el pro­pos­als should include a title and 250 word abstract. The dead­line is 30th Sep­tem­ber 2024. A Call for Papers will then follow.

To sub­mit a pan­el abstract, please fol­low this link: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/health-environment-and-anthropology-heat-2024

Email the con­fer­ence organ­is­ers at anthro.heat.conference@gmail.com

Perma­link

Pan­el on “Influ­ence of Chang­ing Ecolo­gies on Health and Human Adap­ta­tion at Local, Nation­al and Glob­al level”
HEAT 2025
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty (UK)
April 23–24, 2025
Dead­line 13 Jan­u­ary 2025

Pan­el Abstract:
In Anthro­pol­o­gy, research on inter­ac­tions and the com­plex net­work of humans, health and envi­ron­ment start­ed ear­ly with the cul­tur­al ecol­o­gy the­o­ry and med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy in the 1930s and 1960s respec­tive­ly. The focus theme of these approach­es had been adap­ta­tion includ­ing fac­tors of genet­ics, phys­i­ol­o­gy, cul­ture and the approach­es assumed that health is deter­mined by envi­ron­men­tal adap­ta­tion and that dis­eases arise from envi­ron­men­tal imbal­ances. Fur­ther stud­ies are required to under­stand the con­sump­tion pat­terns which are asso­ci­at­ed with health risks affect­ing human biol­o­gy, ecol­o­gy and the epi­demi­ol­o­gy of emerg­ing and reemerg­ing dis­eases. As researchers, the press­ing ques­tion is the present sce­nario of region­al, nation­al and glob­al affairs such as cli­mate change, food inse­cu­ri­ty, envi­ron­men­tal health, demo­graph­ic shifts, etc. Though there are ongo­ing con­sis­tent efforts to iden­ti­fy strate­gies and bring out solu­tions, yet, it requires exten­sive stud­ies on eco­log­i­cal changes and the asso­ci­at­ed health dis­par­i­ties. With this back­drop, the pan­el invites papers/studies con­duct­ed with­in (but not lim­it­ed to) South Asia to explore the cross-cul­tur­al impact of eco­log­i­cal changes on pop­u­la­tions. It seeks to high­light health dis­par­i­ties aris­ing from these changes and have an in-depth dis­cus­sion on region­al-spe­cif­ic health impli­ca­tions, as well as include trends in research method­ol­o­gy. The pan­el, in con­clu­sion, will be address­ing the ‘Ecol­o­gy-Human Adap­ta­tion Imbal­ance’ and will try to iden­ti­fy the loop­holes and bring out prob­a­ble alter­na­tives for region-spe­cif­ic populations.

The pan­el will explore the extent to which chang­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions bring about adverse health con­se­quences and adap­tive imbal­ance under var­i­ous eco­log­i­cal con­di­tions. The pan­el invites papers on the theme of ‘Ecol­o­gy-Human Adap­ta­tion Imbal­ance’ in the con­text of the fol­low­ing areas-

Tra­di­tion­al and mar­gin­alised communities.

Urban ecology.

Food environment.

Demog­ra­phy and access to Pub­lic Health. 

Age­ing and Envi­ron­ment Interaction

Adap­ta­tion to eco­log­i­cal vulnerabilities.

You can sub­mit your abstracts in the Abstract Man­age­ment Por­tal on or before 13 Jan­u­ary 2025. The abstract should not be more than 250 words and the above link pro­vides fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the process of abstract sub­mis­sion. All papers must be sub­mit­ted via the sub­mis­sion point on the con­fer­ence web­site (below). This should be uploaded in .doc or .pdf for­mat. Pro­pos­als must con­sist of:

Title of the pan­el you wish join;

The title of the paper you wish to present;

An abstract of no more than 250 words.

Paper pro­pos­als will be reviewed by pan­el convenor(s) and a deci­sion on whether the paper has been accept­ed or reject­ed will come from them.

Only papers sub­mit­ted via the link below will be con­sid­ered by pan­el convenors.

Web­site Link- Event Durham – Abstract Management 

Rules

You do not have to be an RAI or ASA mem­ber to pro­pose a paper.

You may only present once at the con­fer­ence. Pan­el chairs and dis­cus­sants may also present a paper on a dif­fer­ent panel.

All those attend­ing the con­fer­ence, includ­ing dis­cus­sants and chairs, will need to reg­is­ter and pay to attend.

For any query, kind­ly con­tact: karvileena@gauhati.ac.in

Perma­link

CFP below for a pan­el on „Inti­mate medi­a­tion: hor­mones and endocrine dis­rup­tion across species, place, and time”
2025 Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) Conference
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty, UK
April 23–24, 2025
Co-organ­ised by Durham and Edin­burgh uni­ver­si­ties and spon­sored by the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Soci­ety (RAI)

The call is sched­uled to close on 13 Jan­u­ary, although we will keep this under review and extend if it seems necessary. 

Abstracts can be sub­mit­ted via the Abstract Man­age­ment por­tal. The web­site includes guid­ance and a list of pan­els a pro­pos­er can select from. 

Pan­el #21: „Inti­mate medi­a­tion: hor­mones and endocrine dis­rup­tion across species, place, and time”

Key­words: hor­mones, chem­i­cals, endocrine dis­rup­tion, EDCs, plas­tics, pre­scrip­tion drugs, side effects, alter­life, green chemistry

This pan­el invites con­sid­er­a­tion of endocrine dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals (EDCs) as a key link between health and envi­ron­ment. EDCs are syn­thet­ic chem­i­cals that inter­act with the hor­mon­al mes­sag­ing process­es of humans and oth­er ani­mals, com­mon­ly found in every­day items, notably many plas­tics. These ubiq­ui­tous sub­stances tran­scend local envi­ron­ments through weath­er pat­terns and indus­tri­al chains, defy con­sumer ratio­nales of per­son­al pro­tec­tion through „organ­ic” or „green” choic­es, and have effects that are unpre­dictable and may remain latent for gen­er­a­tions. EDCs are now con­sti­tu­tive of our bod­ies, com­pli­cat­ing any ideas about an un-altered „pure” state, and have been linked to health issues as dis­parate as dia­betes, endometrio­sis, asth­ma, ear­ly puber­ty, obe­si­ty, and gen­der dys­pho­ria. There is good rea­son to con­sid­er hor­mon­al­ly-active phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as EDCs, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en how they can exceed the consumer’s bod­i­ly sys­tem and enter into water­ways and oth­er shared envi­ron­ments. EDCs trou­ble stan­dard polit­i­cal posi­tions around indi­vid­ual auton­o­my and choice, com­pli­cat­ing con­ser­v­a­tive impuls­es towards pro­tec­tion­ism and immu­ni­ty. Study­ing „the expo­some” trou­bles stan­dard ways of mak­ing knowl­edge about chem­i­cals: chem­i­cal effects come into being in inter­ac­tion with one anoth­er instead of as iso­lat­ed vari­ables, and tim­ing of expo­sure often mat­ters more than dosage (counter to the tox­i­co­log­i­cal max­im ‚the dose makes the poi­son’). Add to this the lob­by­ing pres­sure from petro­le­um and chem­i­cal indus­tries, and it is clear why it can be pro­found­ly dif­fi­cult to acknowl­edge and take action about EDCs. Yet, some med­ical research cen­ters, activist groups, artists, and even indus­tri­al ini­tia­tives around „green chem­istry” are doing so. This nexus begs fur­ther anthro­po­log­i­cal inquiry. 

Perma­link

Pan­el on „More-than-human health in an inter­de­pen­dent world”
Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) Conference
Uni­ver­si­ty of Durham
April 23–24 2025
CfP dead­line: 13 Jan
With Wim Van Daele (UiA), Hei­di Fjeld (UiO), Jelle Wouters (RTC), and Ele­na Neri (UiA)

Details: The con­cepts of One Health, Plan­e­tary Health, and Eco-Health fore­ground the depen­den­cy of human health on the health of the envi­ron­ment. In sci­en­tif­ic prac­tice, these con­cepts tend to focus most­ly on the sci­en­tif­ic bio­log­i­cal and tan­gi­ble social aspects of the inter­de­pen­den­cies between the human and non-human aspects of health, neglect­ing the role played by intan­gi­ble and invis­i­ble oth­er-than-human enti­ties. Hence, we adopt the notion of “more-than-human health” to enhance atten­tive­ness to dif­fer­ent onto­log­i­cal and relat­ed (micro)biosocial prac­tices of human and oth­er-than-human health and well-being across the world.

This pan­el invites con­tri­bu­tions that explore com­plex inter­de­pen­den­cies and entan­gle­ments between human beings and visible/tangible and invisible/intangible oth­er-than human enti­ties that in their entan­gle­ment shape more-than-human health. We invite inter­dis­ci­pli­nary ori­ent­ed papers that exam­ine the (micro)biosocial con­nec­tions between invis­i­ble and (sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly made) vis­i­ble aspects in the more-than-human inter­de­pen­dent prac­tice of craft­ing health and well­be­ing across dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions and ontolo­gies. We wel­come par­tic­u­lar­ly papers that attest to the sit­u­at­ed (micro)biosocialities with­in these onto­log­i­cal prac­tices in more-than-human health. This can include, but is not lim­it­ed to, papers explor­ing entan­gle­ments between:

rit­u­al prac­tices and microbiomes,
cos­mol­o­gy, cli­mate change, and chang­ing health practices,
super­nat­ur­al enti­ties, ani­mals, and microbiomes,
epi­ge­net­ics, stress and food environments,

and more under­ex­plored interdependencies…

Perma­link

Call for abstracts to a pan­el on „Scal­ing tox­ic expo­sure; inter­gen­er­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty, care and plan­e­tary health”
Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) Conference
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty (UK)
April 23–24, 2025

The call is sched­uled to close on 13 January

If you are inter­est­ed, please sub­mit an abstract via the Abstract Man­age­ment por­tal. The web­site includes guid­ance on how papers should be sub­mit­ted and a drop down list of pan­els a pro­pos­er can select from. 

Details: Scal­ing tox­ic expo­sure; inter­gen­er­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty, care and plan­e­tary health 

Chem­i­cal expo­sure and their poten­tial tox­ic arrange­ments are inter­gen­er­a­tional, cross­ing lines of kin­ship and con­nect­ing rela­tions to mol­e­cules, mul­ti­ple bod­ies, ecolo­gies and social spaces through non-lin­ear tem­po­ral­i­ties. This presents sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for ethno­graph­ic research con­fronting scales of expo­sure in the con­text of plan­e­tary health, esca­lat­ing cli­mate and eco­log­i­cal crises, pro­found inequal­i­ty, and ongo­ing colo­nial for­ma­tions. In mil­i­tary cam­paigns dev­as­tat­ing lives, geno­cide brings eco­cide. There is a need to exam­ine the nov­el con­fig­u­ra­tions of inter­gen­er­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty, jus­tice and care which arise at these junc­tures, as they index pos­si­bil­i­ties for oth­er ways of life. This requires cre­ative ori­en­ta­tions to method, con­cepts and the­o­ry to address the com­plex tem­po­ral and spa­tial scales of tox­ic exposure. 

Our pan­el seeks con­tri­bu­tions from those engag­ing with chem­i­cal expo­sures and ques­tions of inter­gen­er­a­tional time and social rela­tions with­in anthro­pol­o­gy and/or in dia­logue with oth­er dis­ci­plines and those address­ing the method­olog­i­cal chal­lenges and con­cep­tu­al approach­es relat­ed to these themes. 

Our pan­el is guid­ed but not lim­it­ed to the fol­low­ing questions: 

-How can inter­gen­er­a­tional chem­i­cal expo­sure be exam­ined giv­en that tem­po­ral­i­ty of tox­i­c­i­ty is not linear?
‑What are the pos­si­bil­i­ties for action – for our­selves as researchers, for our research com­mu­ni­ties, and for wider groups entan­gled in these land­scapes – if con­ven­tion­al mech­a­nisms of causal­i­ty do not apply?
‑If the mate­ri­al­i­ty and laten­cy of chem­i­cal expo­sure artic­u­lates an absence in the present how can we exam­ine the per­va­sive and elu­sive­ness of toxicity?
‑What kinds of ethno­graph­ic (re)orientations are required to crit­i­cal­ly ori­ent to the mul­ti­ple tem­po­ral­i­ties of chem­i­cal tox­i­c­i­ty? What can the work of com­par­i­son facil­i­tate in exam­in­ing scales of tox­ic exposure?

Perma­link

Call for Pan­els: RAI FILM Online Con­fer­ence 2025: „Where Are We Now? Visu­al and Mul­ti­modal Anthropology”
28 April – 2 May 2025 (Online only)

RAI FILM and the Film Com­mit­tee of the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Insti­tute invites pan­el, round­table, and work­shop pro­pos­als on any facet of visu­al, mul­ti­sen­so­ry and mul­ti­modal Anthro­pol­o­gy. We want to redou­ble our efforts to achieve a bet­ter and more sus­tain­able future for all by learn­ing more about how anthro­pol­o­gists are using these meth­ods to respond to glob­al chal­lenges of our times. We encour­age pre­sen­ta­tions that explore emer­gent method­olo­gies and inter­ac­tive approach­es. We offer an inclu­sive forum to explore cre­ative and inno­v­a­tive approach­es, dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry meth­ods and tack­le prac­ti­cal problems.
Pos­si­ble areas of con­tem­po­rary inter­est might be dia­logues between emer­gent and exist­ing forms of film mak­ing; AI and chang­ing tech­nolo­gies (extend­ed real­i­ty (XR); sto­ry­telling and nar­ra­tive, indige­nous film­mak­ing; ani­ma­tion, and aesthetics.
In addi­tion to this open call, we are also look­ing to high­light the glob­al chal­lenges for visu­al and mul­ti­modal anthro­pol­o­gy. We ask how visu­al and mul­ti­modal meth­ods can help to address the glob­al chal­lenges of our times. We want to learn how anthro­pol­o­gists are using visu­al and mul­ti­modal tools to respond to issues such as inequal­i­ty, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, pover­ty, cli­mate change, war, and jus­tice. We wel­come engage­ment with top­ics such as food and hunger, water, migra­tion, forced dis­place­ment, extrem­ism and intol­er­ance, social inequal­i­ties, men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion and geno­cide, peace and jus­tice, cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, renew­ables and just economies.
This vir­tu­al con­fer­ence sits along­side the RAI FILM Fes­ti­val which is a bien­ni­al inter­na­tion­al event cel­e­brat­ing the best in doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing from around the globe and estab­lished in 1985 by the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Insti­tute (UK). The fes­ti­val show­cas­es new work from aca­d­e­m­ic anthro­pol­o­gists and relat­ed dis­ci­plines, and from film­mak­ers at all lev­els of expe­ri­ence from stu­dents to pro­fes­sion­als. It looks for fear­less films that ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions, build bridges, seek redress and pro­mote social jus­tice and dialogue.

To see our two most recent edi­tions see: https://festival.raifilm.org.uk/

RAI FILM Fes­ti­val 2025 will cel­e­brate our 40th anniver­sary both in per­son and online:  https://raifilm.org.uk/rai-film-festival-2025/

In per­son film fes­ti­val – 27–30 March 2025 at Water­shed & Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol UK
Screen­ings, gala events, work­shops and talks
Fes­ti­val films avail­able online through­out April 2025
Stream­ing 80 films avail­able 24/7 worldwide
RAI FILM Con­fer­ence – 28 April‑2 May 2025
Keynotes, pan­els, round­table, work­shops and paper presentations

Join us to explore the crit­i­cal role of visu­al and mul­ti­modal anthro­pol­o­gy in address­ing con­tem­po­rary glob­al issues. Sub­mit your pro­pos­als and con­tribute to a dynam­ic and inclu­sive forum for inno­v­a­tive and cre­ative schol­ar­ly exchange.

Pan­el Sub­mis­sion Guidelines:

1. Pan­el, Round­table, and Work­shop Proposals:

• Title: Con­cise and descriptive.
• Short Abstract: a (very) short abstract of less than 300 characters,
• Long Abstract: a long abstract of 250 words

2. Impor­tant Dates:

• Call for Pan­els Clos­es: 1 Octo­ber 2024
• Call for Papers Opens: 1 Novem­ber 2024
• Call for Papers Clos­es: 17 Jan­u­ary 2025
• Reg­is­tra­tion Opens: 24 Feb­ru­ary 2025

To Sub­mit: All pro­pos­als must be made via an online form https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/raiff2025/panel-form

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

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

The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025

Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?

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

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

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

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

Perma­link

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

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

„Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”

Short Abstract:

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

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

Con­venors:

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

Long Abstract:

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

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

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

Perma­link

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

Con­venors:

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

“Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”

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

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

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

For more infor­ma­tion and to apply visit:

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

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

Perma­link

Call for Papers for the work­shop “Queer Phar­ma: Exper­i­men­ta­tions in Bod­ies, Sub­stances, Affects”
June 4–6, 2025
Schwules Muse­um Berlin & Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin
Co-orga­nized by Han­sjörg Dil­ger and Max Schnepf 

Queer Phar­ma: Exper­i­men­ta­tions in Bod­ies, Sub­stances, Affects

Aca­d­e­m­ic work­shop with a pub­lic keynote by Kane Race (Pro­fes­sor of Gen­der and Cul­tur­al Stud­ies, Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney) & an artis­tic ses­sion led by Tomás Espinosa

Abstract sub­mis­sion: Novem­ber 24, 2024
Noti­fi­ca­tions of accep­tance: Decem­ber 6, 2024
Pre-cir­cu­la­tion of paper drafts (3.000 words): May 4, 2025

Exper­i­men­ta­tions with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sub­stances cra­dle queer poten­tial – bod­ies and organ­isms trans­form, rela­tions shift, emo­tions swell or fade into qui­etude. With capac­i­ties to inter­vene in life’s process­es, drugs and med­i­cines are not mere­ly prod­ucts of ‘Big Phar­ma,’ but agents of uncan­ny pos­si­bil­i­ty. How might we imag­ine minor ‘phar­mas’ in ten­sion with or on the mar­gins of the dom­i­nance, epit­o­mized by the cap­i­tal­ized ‘Big’? Tak­ing Queer Phar­ma as a coun­ter­point, this work­shop invites sub­mis­sions that ethno­graph­i­cal­ly engage with uncer­tain­ties and impro­vi­sa­tions in exper­i­ment­ing with bod­ies, sub­stances, and affects – whether through drug use or oth­er phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prac­tices (Race 2009, 2018). What new mate­r­i­al and affec­tive con­stel­la­tions might emerge if we were to focus on exper­i­men­ta­tion as a queer prac­tice? […]

You can find the full CFP attached and also HERE.

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Work­shop „The­o­riz­ing through the mun­dane: sto­ry­ing trans­for­ma­tions in healthcare”
Depart­ment of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Zurich, Switzerland
04–06.06.2025
CfP Dead­line: 01.12 2024

Details:
As a ‘big sto­ry’ con­cern, trans­for­ma­tions in health­care abound: dig­i­tal­iza­tion and the intro­duc­tion of AI, major demo­graph­ic trans­for­ma­tions, antimi­cro­bial resis­tances, soar­ing health­care staff short­ages, the emer­gence of trans­gen­der care, the ‘cri­sis’ of mater­ni­ty and neona­tal care, and ever increas­ing health inequal­i­ties are just a few of them. This work­shop and spe­cial issue respond to such ‘big sto­ry’ con­cerns in health­care by the­o­riz­ing through ‘the mundane’.

STS has a long tra­di­tion – with dif­fer­ent begin­nings – of attend­ing to and the­o­riz­ing through ‘the mun­dane’. Think about for exam­ple the mun­dane­ness of infra­struc­tur­al work (Bowk­er and Star 1999), the fleet­ing­ly sub­tle ‘here-and-now’ (Ver­ran 1999), the every­day­ness of mar­gin­al­iz­ing ‘invis­i­ble work’ (Star/Strauss 1989) and Latour’s doorstop­per (Johnson/Latour 1988). More recent­ly, it has been cen­tral to ‘care stud­ies’ and ‘main­te­nance and repair stud­ies’ marked through an atten­tion to ‘dai­ly life matters’
and ‘tin­ker­ing’ (Mol et al. 2010), ‘exno­va­tion’ (Mes­man 2008), ‘every­day ethics’ (Pols 2023), the eas­i­ly deval­ued as ethico-polit­i­cal com­mit­ment (Puig de la Bel­la­casa 2011), and over­looked sit­u­a­tions that take place in inter­stices of rou­tine and break­down (Denis et al. 2015).

In this work­shop and spe­cial issue, we are draw­ing upon and extend­ing these rich STS accounts on ‘the mun­dane’ to empir­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate, think about and exper­i­ment with how STS schol­ars can relate to and inter­vene in ‘trans­for­ma­tions’ in health­care. After, or in addi­tion to, the ana­lyt­i­cal sen­si­tiv­i­ties and con­cerns that have been devel­oped in the care debate (Lindén and Lydahl 2021; Mol, Moser, Pols 2021; Mar­tin, Myers, Viseu 2015; Puig de la Bel­la­casa 2011) and the field of val­u­a­tion stud­ies (Dus­sauge, Helges­son, Lee 2015), which have dom­i­nat­ed research on health­care in STS over the past decade, the spe­cial issue seeks to – empir­i­cal­ly, ana­lyt­i­cal­ly, and polit­i­cal­ly – take the next step. ‘The­o­ris­ing through the mun­dane’ offers a ver­sion of STS that stays respon­sive to the ways we are liv­ing, dying and car­ing for bod­ies and dis­eases, and their trans­for­ma­tions, in the first half of the 21st cen­tu­ry; it offers an STS that trans­forms with and through these ways now, here, and in the future.

The work­shop and spe­cial issue wel­comes papers with an empir­i­cal focus on health­care in the large sense. The con­tri­bu­tions will explore ques­tions such as:

– What counts as ‘mun­dane’ in par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tions, sites, prac­tices of healthcare?
– How does an atten­tion to ‘the mun­dane’ allow us to trans­form ‘big sto­ries’ about cur­rent trans­for­ma­tions in healthcare?
– How does ‘the mun­dane’ allow us to attend to modes of liv­ing and dying well?
– How to stay atten­tive to asym­met­ri­cal con­fig­u­ra­tions and the non-inno­cence of ‘the mundane’?
– How does the lens of the mun­dane trans­form and extend STS theorizing?

The work­shop will take place from the 4th to the 6th June 2025 at the Depart­ment of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Zurich. Par­tic­i­pants need to sub­mit a paper draft before­hand, which will be dis­cussed dur­ing the work­shop. On the third day, we will engage in
alter­na­tive for­mats (walk­ing, writ­ing, etc.) to think through the mundane.

The spe­cial issue will be based on the work­shop and sub­mit­ted to a major STS jour­nal (cur­rent­ly envis­aged S&TS).

If this speaks to you and you are inter­est­ed in sub­mit­ting a con­tri­bu­tion to the work­shop and spe­cial issue or only to the spe­cial issue, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words before the 1st Decem­ber 2024 to: theorising_through_the_mundane@etik.com
If you have fur­ther ques­tions, do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us. We are look­ing for­ward to receiv­ing your contribution.

Time­line:
2024 Decem­ber 1: Open call for con­tri­bu­tions closes
2024 Decem­ber 31: Deci­sions of edi­tors on who will par­tic­i­pate in work­shop and/or SI & com­mu­ni­ca­tion of deci­sion to applicants
2025 Begin­ning May: Sub­mis­sion of paper draft for workshop
2025 June 4–6: Work­shop in Zurich (day 1 & 2 for dis­cus­sion of paper drafts, day 3 with alter­na­tive for­mats for think­ing through the mundane)
2025 Sep­tem­ber 30: Sub­mis­sion paper to a major STS jour­nal (cur­rent­ly envis­aged: S&TS)

Perma­link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Con­trib­u­tors may focus on the fol­low­ing dimensions: 

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

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

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

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

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

Perma­link

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

Dead­line for abstracts is 3 Feb 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perma­link

Call for sub­mis­sions for the 3rd ENPA Bien­ni­al Con­fer­ence, Anthro­polo­gies and Psy­cholo­gies in Inter/Action – Engag­ing Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Perspectives
11–13 June 2025
Schloss, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mün­ster, Germany
With a junior fac­ul­ty pre-con­fer­ence on 10 June 2025 

This year’s theme explores the emerg­ing inter­sec­tions of psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­polo­gies and anthro­po­log­i­cal psy­cholo­gies, fos­ter­ing dia­logue on the poten­tial of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion. We seek con­tri­bu­tions from anthro­pol­o­gists, psy­chol­o­gists, and schol­ars from relat­ed dis­ci­plines who wish to present their research, share reflec­tions, and imag­ine future col­lab­o­ra­tions at the cross­roads of these fields. 

Con­fer­ence Focus:

We aim to cat­alyze inno­va­tions in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engage­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing: Method­olog­i­cal, the­o­ret­i­cal, and con­cep­tu­al reflec­tions / Chal­lenges to uni­ver­sal­iz­ing the­o­ries and inter­ven­tions in the face of pow­er asym­me­tries and crit­i­cal epis­te­molo­gies / Decol­o­niz­ing and diver­si­fy­ing research meth­ods, infra­struc­tures, and cur­ric­u­la / Ret­ro­spec­tive, cur­rent, and for­ward-look­ing per­spec­tives on inter­dis­ci­pli­nary work in aca­d­e­m­ic and non-aca­d­e­m­ic contexts. 

Through this con­fer­ence, we seek to cre­ate con­struc­tive dia­logues that pro­pose new frame­works for research, prac­tice, and appli­ca­tion in areas such as pol­i­cy-mak­ing, ther­a­py, heal­ing, edu­ca­tion, care, and resistance. 

Call for Contributions: 

We warm­ly wel­come sub­mis­sions for pan­els, papers, round­ta­bles, and labs that engage with these themes. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and exper­i­men­tal for­mats, includ­ing cross-media, film-based research, and pub­lic-fac­ing projects. For­mats can be either ful­ly online or ful­ly in-house but can­not com­bine both with­in the same session. 

Sub­mis­sion Dead­line: 31 Jan­u­ary 2025. 

Please send your sub­mis­sions to: submissions@enpanthro.net

For detailed guide­lines and updates, please see our detailed Call for Papers below (since the mail­ing list does not allow attach­ments). You will also find the call for papers on ENPA’s web­site soon: https://enpanthro.net/

————————–

Con­fer­ence Theme

This con­fer­ence takes the recent emer­gence of psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­polo­gies (and also anthro­po­log­i­cal psy­cholo­gies) as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect on the poten­tial of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion. It invites anthro­pol­o­gists, psy­chol­o­gists, and schol­ars from relat­ed dis­ci­plines who are inter­est­ed or engaged in join­ing forces across dis­ci­plines to present their research and reflect on their schol­ar­ship, inter­ven­tions, and aca­d­e­m­ic land­scapes. It is the main aim of the con­fer­ence to cat­alyze or set forth ideas and imag­i­na­tions for future inter/actions between psy­cholo­gies and anthropologies.

The con­fer­ence invites research papers and con­tri­bu­tions on method­olog­i­cal, the­o­ret­i­cal, and con­cep­tu­al inno­va­tions and reflec­tions on the poten­tial of anthro­polo­gies and psy­cholo­gies that are increas­ing­ly con­cerned with pow­er asym­me­tries, crit­i­cal epis­te­molo­gies, and the effects of uni­ver­sal­iz­ing the­o­ries and inter­ven­tions. In the face of grow­ing human and non-human inter­con­nect­ed­ness, psy­cho­log­i­cal anthro­pol­o­gy fos­ters insights into new forms of inequal­i­ty, vio­lence, and human sub­jec­tiv­i­ty. The assump­tion that psy­cho­log­i­cal and bio-psy­chi­atric insights are to be imposed on human expe­ri­ence and behav­ior is itself open to ques­tion, cre­at­ing ten­sions between uni­ver­sal­iz­ing and rel­a­tiviz­ing under­stand­ings of the human con­di­tion that col­lab­o­ra­tions between anthro­pol­o­gy and psy­chol­o­gy are unique­ly posi­tioned to address. 

In addi­tion to explor­ing cur­rent inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engage­ments, the con­fer­ence high­lights per­spec­tives on diver­si­fy­ing and decol­o­niz­ing research meth­ods, infra­struc­tures, and cur­ric­u­la. Such self-reflex­ive and col­lab­o­ra­tive lens­es seem para­mount as they chal­lenge hege­mon­ic key assump­tions on feel­ing, think­ing, inter­act­ing, or learning. 

The con­fer­ence encour­ages par­tic­i­pants to think of their con­tri­bu­tions not just, or even pri­mar­i­ly, as cri­tiques but rather as con­struc­tive attempts to define and pro­pose future trans- and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engage­ments at the inter­sec­tions of psy­chol­o­gy and anthro­pol­o­gy and relat­ed dis­ci­plines. This con­fer­ence is inter­est­ed in ret­ro­spec­tives, cur­rent ini­tia­tives, and pro­pos­als for ways to do inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research, ana­lyze results, the­o­rize, and apply them in aca­d­e­m­ic and non-aca­d­e­m­ic settings. 

Through a fruit­ful dia­logue with­in and between dis­ci­plines, the 3rd ENPA 2025 Bien­ni­al aims to fos­ter new insights in research con­texts, pol­i­cy­mak­ing, ther­a­py, heal­ing, car­ing, resist­ing, or learn­ing, to men­tion but a few ini­tia­tives. It explic­it­ly invites inter­dis­ci­pli­nary dia­logues and collaborations.

Call for Pan­els, Papers, Round­ta­bles, and Labs

We warm­ly invite pan­el and paper sub­mis­sions across the field of schol­ars work­ing at the inter­sec­tions of anthro­pol­o­gy, psy­chol­o­gy, and relat­ed dis­ci­plines. Aside from research papers, we explic­it­ly encour­age con­tri­bu­tions that work with mixed, cross/media, or film as research meth­ods or ways that com­mu­ni­cate research in aca­d­e­m­ic and non-aca­d­e­m­ic publics. We also encour­age round­ta­bles on con­tro­ver­sial ques­tions and debates, and we invite cre­ative labs that can be con­duct­ed both inside the venue and in the sur­round­ing envi­ron­ments of the Schloss (includ­ing the Botan­i­cal Gar­den, Schloss Park, or the city).

Pan­el and paper sub­mis­sions: We emphat­i­cal­ly encour­age pan­el sub­mis­sions but will also accept a lim­it­ed num­ber of indi­vid­ual papers, which will be arranged into cohe­sive pan­els by the ENPA con­fer­ence team. Each pan­el ses­sion includes 5 x 20-minute pre­sen­ta­tion slots and 20 min­utes for open dis­cus­sion. Pos­si­ble for­mats are: 5 papers + 20 min dis­cus­sion OR 4 papers, dis­cus­sant + 20 min discussion. 

Round­ta­bles: We invite round­ta­bles on con­tro­ver­sial ques­tions and debates com­pris­ing a max­i­mum of 7 (inter­na­tion­al) guest speak­ers and 3 moderators.

Labs: We encour­age labs in which exper­i­men­tal dis­cus­sion for­mats are to be test­ed. This includes walk-alongs, walkie-talkies, emplaced learn­ing, or artis­tic meth­ods, to men­tion but a few exam­ples, as well as projects that break new ground method­olog­i­cal­ly and ped­a­gog­i­cal­ly. A max­i­mum of 4 orga­niz­ers are encour­aged to engage in cre­ative for­mats and orga­nize the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, aims, and modalities.

All pre­sen­ta­tion types (i.e., pan­els, papers, round­ta­bles, and labs can be orga­nized as either exclu­sive online for­mats, or as exclu­sive in-house for­mats, but for­mats can­not be merged (i.e. it is not pos­si­ble to have a mix of online and in-house pre­sen­ta­tions in one pan­el, round­table, lab).

Please sub­mit your pan­els, papers, round­ta­bles, or labs by 31 Jan­u­ary 2025 via email at submissions@enpanthro.net

Pan­el sub­mis­sions should include:

· gen­er­al abstract, max 250 words, please indi­cate if online or in-house
· abstract for each of the 4–5 papers, max 250 words each
· name, insti­tu­tion­al affil­i­a­tion, and email of all par­tic­i­pants (chair/s, pre­sen­ters, discussants)

Indi­vid­ual paper sub­mis­sions should include:

· abstract, max 250 words, please indi­cate if online or in-house
· name, affil­i­a­tion, and email

Round­table sub­mis­sions should include:

· gen­er­al abstract, max 250 words, please indi­cate if online or in-house
· name, insti­tu­tion­al affil­i­a­tion, and email of all par­tic­i­pants (mod­er­a­tors, guest speakers)

Lab sub­mis­sions should include: 

· gen­er­al abstract in the theme, max 250 words, please indi­cate if online or in-house
· a note on aims, modal­i­ties, media, ped­a­gogy, space, and for­mat, max 250 words
· name, insti­tu­tion­al affil­i­a­tion, and email of all organizers

To ensure robust atten­dance across work­shops, labs, and round­ta­bles, the con­fer­ence orga­niz­ers may lim­it the total num­ber of ses­sions avail­able in these for­mats. Addi­tion­al­ly, the ‘two-role rule’ applies to roles involv­ing work­shops, labs, round­table orga­ni­za­tion, and posi­tions as pan­elists or speak­ers: each par­tic­i­pant may engage in no more than two dis­tinct roles across these cat­e­gories (e.g., workshop/lab/roundtable orga­ni­za­tion, speak­er, mod­er­a­tor, or dis­cus­sant). Dual roles with­in the same cat­e­go­ry are not per­mit­ted. Please note that when par­tic­i­pat­ing in a lab, the ‘two-role rule’ does not apply.

Reg­is­tra­tion will open in Feb­ru­ary 2025, and – as in pre­vi­ous years – we aim to keep fees as low as pos­si­ble to ensure a diverse and acces­si­ble conference.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on ENPA and the 3rd ENPA 2025 Bien­ni­al Con­fer­ence can be found on our web­site: https://enpanthro.net. If you have any fur­ther ques­tions regard­ing the con­fer­ence, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us at conference@enpanthro.net

Perma­link

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

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

Pan­el 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

Con­trib­u­tors may focus on the fol­low­ing dimensions: 

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

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

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

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

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

Perma­link

CfP for a con­fer­ence on „Care in and out of Africa”
Prague, June 25–28 2025
Organ­is­ers : Lys Alcay­na-Stevens, Clara Devlieger 

Inter­est­ed con­trib­u­tors should sub­mit an abstract in Eng­lish or French by 15 Decem­ber 2024 via the ECAS paper sub­mis­sion form. If you have any ques­tions, please do not hes­i­tate to get in touch with Lys (lys.alcayna-stevens@anthro.ox.ac.uk) and/or Clara (clara.devlieger@unil.ch).

Abstract: Care, both as a con­cept and a prac­tice, is deeply embed­ded in every­day life in Africa. From the inti­mate acts of care­giv­ing dur­ing preg­nan­cy and ill­ness to com­mu­nal rites sur­round­ing funer­als, and the shared expe­ri­ence of food or prayer, care man­i­fests through sen­so­ry and affec­tive engage­ments that shape fam­i­ly and com­mu­nal bonds. These prac­tices are entan­gled with­in broad­er his­to­ries of migra­tion, colo­nial­ism, and glob­al health regimes. This pan­el inter­ro­gates how these entan­gle­ments are expe­ri­enced, con­test­ed, and trans­formed in Africa and among its diasporas.

By bring­ing togeth­er schol­ars work­ing at the inter­sec­tion of care, sens­es, affect, and health, we explore ques­tions such as: How is care nego­ti­at­ed in set­tings of state neglect? What do the ten­sions between patients and prac­ti­tion­ers, and between bio­med­ical pro­to­cols and every­day care prac­tices, show about the entan­gle­ment of care with pow­er, inequal­i­ty, and gov­er­nance? How do they repro­duce inequal­i­ties or serve as sites of resis­tance against neolib­er­al­ism and biopo­lit­i­cal con­trol? Who are the new providers and recip­i­ents of care, and under what con­di­tions does care become politicised?

Chang­ing care arrange­ments high­light inter­sec­tions of polit­i­cal econ­o­my, embod­ied expe­ri­ence, and every­day prac­tice. How does care bring moral and polit­i­cal economies togeth­er? How is care felt, sensed, and enact­ed in var­i­ous con­texts, from health­care set­tings to domes­tic spaces? How does care extend beyond humans to include ani­mals, plants, ecosys­tems, and ances­tors – expand­ing the notion of what con­sti­tutes com­mu­ni­ty and kin­ship and blur­ring the bina­ry of care-giv­er and recipient?

Perma­link

Call for con­tri­bu­tions to a Stream on “Tox­i­c­i­ty in Africa”
ECAS 2025 con­fer­ence Prague
June 25–28, 2025

Dead­line for paper sub­mis­sions: 15th Decem­ber 2024.

Orga­niz­ers: Wen­zel Geissler, Natal­ie Jas, Susan Levine, Ruth Prince, Nick Rahi­er, Noe­mi Tou­sig­nant, Miri­am Waltz.

Pan­el 1: Tox­ic accu­mu­la­tions: expo­sure, growth and envi­ron­ment in Africa.

This pan­el exam­ines cir­cu­la­tions, absorp­tions and accu­mu­la­tions of tox­ic sub­stances at dif­fer­ent scales, through and into bod­ies, organ­isms and mate­ri­als, ecolo­gies and land­scapes, explor­ing entan­gle­ments with extrac­tion, growth and devel­op­ment, and how forms of tox­i­c­i­ty are noticed and act­ed upon.

Orga­niz­ers: Ruth Prince and Noe­mi Tousignant

Pan­el 2. Pes­ti­cide pol­i­tics in Africa: glob­al cir­cu­la­tion, pro­duc­tion, research and reg­u­la­tion of agrochemicals.

Pes­ti­cides cir­cu­late glob­al­ly, move between sites of pro­duc­tion and use, con­nect lab­o­ra­to­ries, board­rooms and leg­is­la­tions, pen­e­trate sub­strates, bio­ta and ecolo­gies, cut across scale from atmos­pheres to cells, and, per­sist­ing in bod­ies and envi­ron­ments, they mark tem­po­ral­i­ties and cut across times. 

Orga­niz­ers: Wen­zel Geissler and Nathalie Jas

Round­table Dis­cus­sion: Pes­ti­cide pol­i­tics in Africa: agro­chem­i­cal inten­si­fi­ca­tion, agro­chem­i­cal harm, and the search for alter­na­tive forms of growth.

In this round­table experts and activists from var­i­ous dis­ci­plines will dis­cuss recent inten­si­fi­ca­tions of agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, rang­ing from indus­tri­alised plan­ta­tions to small-scale farm­ing – dri­ven by indus­try pres­sure and (some) donor poli­cies, fuelled by grow­ing agro­chem­i­cal input and chang­ing land-use, linked by new finan­cial and prop­er­ty regimes – as well as reflect on the search for alter­na­tive forms of sus­tain­able food production.

Link: https://www.ecasconference.org/2025/call-for-papers/ (the pan­els are under “Anthro­pol­o­gy”

Perma­link

CfP „Ethno­gra­phies of expert knowl­edges in men­tal health, neu­ro­di­ver­gence, and disability”
10th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Ethnog­ra­phy and Qual­i­ta­tive Research Tren­to, Italy
July 10 to 12, 2025

Dead­line: 20 January

„Ethno­gra­phies of expert knowl­edges in men­tal health, neu­ro­di­ver­gence, and disability”

Nowa­days, there has been a «dis­cur­sive explo­sion» sur­round­ing men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, and neu­ro­di­ver­gence result­ing in a wide array of het­ero­ge­neous nar­ra­tives and rep­re­sen­ta­tions in pub­lic and aca­d­e­m­ic debates. Par­tic­u­lar­ly on dig­i­tal plat­forms, we wit­ness a rise in con­tent focused on «pos­i­tiv­i­ty» and the rever­sal of stig­ma. These can cer­tain­ly be seen as an incur­sion into the polit­i­cal sphere by mad/crip activism; how­ev­er, it is impor­tant to rec­og­nize how (part of) these dis­cours­es could be absorbed into a neolib­er­al frame­work. In a con­text of per­for­ma­tive and extrac­tivist log­ic, mad/crip/neurodivergent pos­i­tiv­i­ty risks becom­ing yet anoth­er tool that decrees the «sal­va­tion» of those with the resources to fit into the frame­work of «diver­si­ty» val­ori­sa­tion, while lead­ing to process­es of «mon­stri­fi­ca­tion» towards those who devi­ate from this con­struc­tion of subjectivity.

Cen­tral in oper­at­ing this dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion is the role of expert knowl­edge. Although men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, and neu­ro­di­ver­gence remain still framed with­in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly bio­med­ical par­a­digm, a range of tech­ni­cal fig­ures are inter­ven­ing in the con­struc­tion of cat­e­gories and the «take charge of users». An arch­i­pel­ago of expert knowl­edges – social work­ers, legal actors, tutors, edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices, (for­mer) patients who take on roles as «expert users», NGO vol­un­teers – thus inter­vene in iden­ti­ty and rela­tion­al con­struc­tions, defin­ing life tra­jec­to­ries, pro­duc­ing spaces and ser­vices that inher­ent­ly nav­i­gate the con­sti­tu­tive ambi­gu­i­ty between care and con­trol, treat­ment and neglect. Among these are the social sci­ences, both in their pro­duc­tion of knowl­edge and in pro­vid­ing tools for social care prac­tices. They con­tribute to defin­ing, iden­ti­fy­ing, clas­si­fy­ing, and quan­ti­fy­ing the users, posi­tion­ing them with­in the grids of «deserving/appropriate» vs «irrecov­er­able» patient, «reha­bil­itable» vs excluded.

The cur­rent con­fig­u­ra­tion, result­ing from the dis­man­tling of nation­al social pro­tec­tion sys­tems in the wake of aus­ter­i­ty poli­cies and the shift of respon­si­bil­i­ty to the pri­vate sec­tor, rep­re­sents only the lat­est phase in a long-stand­ing process of dif­fer­en­tial inclu­sion and exclu­sion, deeply embed­ded in the very struc­ture of social wel­fare and the State itself.

Ethno­graph­ic prac­tice high­lights pow­er struc­tures, fos­ter­ing crit­i­cal reflec­tion on the role of social work and expert knowl­edges. This approach chal­lenges estab­lished insti­tu­tions and mod­els while also sit­u­at­ing the process­es sur­round­ing care and treat­ment with­in rela­tion­ships, con­texts, and every­day tactics.

We invite con­tri­bu­tions that address men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, and neu­ro­di­ver­gence, with­in and beyond the care/control bina­ry. We ask what is the role of «expert knowl­edges» – con­sid­ered in their sin­gu­lar­i­ty or inter­sec­tions – in the con­struc­tion of sub­jec­tiv­i­ties, in the pro­duc­tion of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and in the process­es of dis­tinc­tion and frag­men­ta­tion of the user base; and how prac­tices of sub­trac­tion or resis­tance to such devices configure.

Open ques­tions

– What process­es shape the con­struc­tion of mean­ing around the cat­e­gories of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and fragili­ty (across dis­abil­i­ty, neu­ro­di­ver­gence, and men­tal health), and how do these cat­e­gories influ­ence social work in tak­ing charge and man­ag­ing users?
– How can an ethno­graph­ic cri­tique of con­cepts such as pater­nal­ism and pietism in social wel­fare be framed, start­ing from prac­tices of care, con­trol, neglect, and treatment?
– How do prac­tices of dis­tinc­tion with­in social ser­vices (broad­ly defined) emerge between the «deserv­ing» user and the «prob­lem­at­ic» user, and how do these distinctions—simultaneously prac­ti­cal, orga­ni­za­tion­al, and moral—affect the bal­ance between care and control?
– How does the rela­tion­ship between fam­i­lies, pub­lic ser­vices, and care­givers con­fig­ure the every­day dynam­ics of care and con­trol with­in a con­text of poly-cri­sis and dis­man­tling the wel­fare state? How do the «third sec­tor», human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions, and vol­un­teer­ing intersect
in this relationship?
– How do mad/crip/neurodivergent sub­jec­ti­va­tion process­es unfold, both with­in and beyond med­ical­iza­tion and the fram­ing of ser­vice users?
– What impact do social inequalities—based on struc­tur­al axes of class, race, gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ties, and others—have on the ratio­nale of social ser­vices? How do these process­es influ­ence street-lev­el bureau­cra­cy prac­tices, and how do they shape sub­jec­ti­va­tion with­in these systems?
– What forms of with­draw­al and detach­ment from the con­trol­ling dimen­sions of social and clin­i­cal work exist, and what pos­si­bil­i­ties do they open up?
– What are the process­es of spa­tial­iza­tion of disability/neurodivergence/mental health, and how do they relate to social and clin­i­cal work? What are the geo­gra­phies of these process­es, and what do they add to our understanding?

Perma­link

Call for papers for „Ethno­gra­phies of expert knowl­edges in men­tal health, neu­ro­di­ver­gence, and disability”
10th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Ethnog­ra­phy and Qual­i­ta­tive Research
July 10 to 12, 2025 

Dead­line Jan­u­ary 25th 

33. Ethno­gra­phies of expert knowl­edges in men­tal health, neu­ro­di­ver­gence, and disability.

Nowa­days, there has been a «dis­cur­sive explo­sion» sur­round­ing men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, and neu­ro­di­ver­gence result­ing in a wide array of het­ero­ge­neous nar­ra­tives and rep­re­sen­ta­tions in pub­lic and aca­d­e­m­ic debates. Par­tic­u­lar­ly on dig­i­tal plat­forms, we wit­ness a rise in con­tent focused on «pos­i­tiv­i­ty» and the rever­sal of stig­ma. These can cer­tain­ly be seen as an incur­sion into the polit­i­cal sphere by mad/crip activism; how­ev­er, it is impor­tant to rec­og­nize how (part of) these dis­cours­es could be absorbed into a neolib­er­al frame­work. In a con­text of per­for­ma­tive and extrac­tivist log­ic, mad/crip/neurodivergent pos­i­tiv­i­ty risks becom­ing yet anoth­er tool that decrees the «sal­va­tion» of those with the resources to fit into the frame­work of «diver­si­ty» val­ori­sa­tion, while lead­ing to process­es of «mon­stri­fi­ca­tion» towards those who devi­ate from this con­struc­tion of subjectivity.

Cen­tral in oper­at­ing this dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion is the role of expert knowl­edge. Although men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, and neu­ro­di­ver­gence remain still framed with­in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly bio­med­ical par­a­digm, a range of tech­ni­cal fig­ures are inter­ven­ing in the con­struc­tion of cat­e­gories and the «take charge of users». An arch­i­pel­ago of expert knowl­edges – social work­ers, legal actors, tutors, edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices, (for­mer) patients who take on roles as «expert users», NGO vol­un­teers – thus inter­vene in iden­ti­ty and rela­tion­al con­struc­tions, defin­ing life tra­jec­to­ries, pro­duc­ing spaces and ser­vices that inher­ent­ly nav­i­gate the con­sti­tu­tive ambi­gu­i­ty between care and con­trol, treat­ment and neglect. Among these are the social sci­ences, both in their pro­duc­tion of knowl­edge and in pro­vid­ing tools for social care prac­tices. They con­tribute to defin­ing, iden­ti­fy­ing, clas­si­fy­ing, and quan­ti­fy­ing the users, posi­tion­ing them with­in the grids of «deserving/appropriate» vs «irrecov­er­able» patient, «reha­bil­itable» vs excluded.

The cur­rent con­fig­u­ra­tion, result­ing from the dis­man­tling of nation­al social pro­tec­tion sys­tems in the wake of aus­ter­i­ty poli­cies and the shift of respon­si­bil­i­ty to the pri­vate sec­tor, rep­re­sents only the lat­est phase in a long-stand­ing process of dif­fer­en­tial inclu­sion and exclu­sion, deeply embed­ded in the very struc­ture of social wel­fare and the State itself.

Ethno­graph­ic prac­tice high­lights pow­er struc­tures, fos­ter­ing crit­i­cal reflec­tion on the role of social work and expert knowl­edges. This approach chal­lenges estab­lished insti­tu­tions and mod­els while also sit­u­at­ing the process­es sur­round­ing care and treat­ment with­in rela­tion­ships, con­texts, and every­day tactics.

We invite con­tri­bu­tions that address men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, and neu­ro­di­ver­gence, with­in and beyond the care/control bina­ry. We ask what is the role of «expert knowl­edges» – con­sid­ered in their sin­gu­lar­i­ty or inter­sec­tions – in the con­struc­tion of sub­jec­tiv­i­ties, in the pro­duc­tion of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and in the process­es of dis­tinc­tion and frag­men­ta­tion of the user base; and how prac­tices of sub­trac­tion or resis­tance to such devices configure.

Open ques­tions

What process­es shape the con­struc­tion of mean­ing around the cat­e­gories of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and fragili­ty (across dis­abil­i­ty, neu­ro­di­ver­gence, and men­tal health), and how do these cat­e­gories influ­ence social work in tak­ing charge and man­ag­ing users?
How can an ethno­graph­ic cri­tique of con­cepts such as pater­nal­ism and pietism in social wel­fare be framed, start­ing from prac­tices of care, con­trol, neglect, and treatment?
How do prac­tices of dis­tinc­tion with­in social ser­vices (broad­ly defined) emerge between the «deserv­ing» user and the «prob­lem­at­ic» user, and how do these distinctions—simultaneously prac­ti­cal, orga­ni­za­tion­al, and moral—affect the bal­ance between care and control?
How does the rela­tion­ship between fam­i­lies, pub­lic ser­vices, and care­givers con­fig­ure the every­day dynam­ics of care and con­trol with­in a con­text of poly-cri­sis and dis­man­tling the wel­fare state? How do the «third sec­tor», human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions, and vol­un­teer­ing inter­sect in this relationship?
How do mad/crip/neurodivergent sub­jec­ti­va­tion process­es unfold, both with­in and beyond med­ical­iza­tion and the fram­ing of ser­vice users?
What impact do social inequalities—based on struc­tur­al axes of class, race, gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ties, and others—have on the ratio­nale of social ser­vices? How do these process­es influ­ence street-lev­el bureau­cra­cy prac­tices, and how do they shape sub­jec­ti­va­tion with­in these systems?
What forms of with­draw­al and detach­ment from the con­trol­ling dimen­sions of social and clin­i­cal work exist, and what pos­si­bil­i­ties do they open up?
What are the process­es of spa­tial­iza­tion of disability/neurodivergence/mental health, and how do they relate to social and clin­i­cal work? What are the geo­gra­phies of these process­es, and what do they add to our understanding?

For any issues, don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact the con­venors at fabio.bertoni@ics.ulisboa.pt and luca.sterchele@unito.it.

Perma­link

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in-per­son pan­el P100 – Towards new alter­na­tives in social care: Tran­si­tions in the domes­tic, insti­tu­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ty care scenarios
9th APA (Asso­ci­ação Por­tugue­sa de Antropologia)
Caste­lo (Por­tu­gal)
14 to 18 July 2025

Abstracts are due by Jan­u­ary 13, 2025

https://apa2025.eventqualia.net/pt/inicio/painéis/chamada-comunicações/

We invite sub­mis­sions of papers in both Span­ish and Eng­lish that pro­vide new insights on this topic.

Abstract:
Care prac­tices have sig­nif­i­cant rela­tions to people’s exis­tence and social repro­duc­tion. Care­giv­ing involves a com­plex inter­ac­tion between stake­hold­ers in var­i­ous sce­nar­ios (domes­tic, insti­tu­tion­al, and com­mu­ni­ty-based). Indeed, care is pro­vid­ed through a chang­ing con­stel­la­tion of resources across fam­i­lies, the State, the mar­ket and civ­il soci­ety, all of which com­prise the insti­tu­tion­al struc­ture of social care. Sim­i­lar­ly, care is struc­tured not only by gen­der but also by age, class, and ethnic/national ori­gin. The tra­di­tion­al care options have been between domes­tic care and res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties. Insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion in a res­i­den­tial care home is an option that is usu­al­ly reserved for wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tions of depen­dence. Age­ing in one’s own home is an aspi­ra­tion, but this often takes place in hous­ing and neigh­bor­hoods that are not adapt­ed to the needs of the age­ing, accel­er­at­ing their vul­ner­a­ble process­es. In addi­tion, ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­par­i­ties (urban-rur­al areas) also account for inequal­i­ties in the access of care.
Our pan­el is ori­ent­ed towards iden­ti­fy­ing the ele­ments that can give rise to alter­na­tive for­mu­las for social care, which make it pos­si­ble to shift the cen­tral role played by fam­i­lies and women, favor­ing the dig­ni­fi­ca­tion of paid and unpaid care. To under­stand the expe­ri­ences in new care envi­ron­ments that try to fos­ter new forms of artic­u­la­tion between social agents and their care sur­round­ings (cohous­ing, care ecosys­tems, com­mu­ni­ties, etc.). We are inter­est­ed in con­tri­bu­tions that, based on ethno­graph­ic work and the­o­ret­i­cal reflec­tion, ana­lyze inno­v­a­tive for­mu­las in the artic­u­la­tion of long-term care providers, iden­ti­fy­ing their scope and lim­i­ta­tions when sub­vert­ing ter­ri­to­r­i­al, social and gen­der inequalities.

Perma­link

CfP for pan­el on the top­ic „Towards new alter­na­tives in social care: Tran­si­tions in the domes­tic, insti­tu­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ty care scenarios”
9th APA – Asso­ci­ação Por­tugue­sa de Antropologia
Viana do Caste­lo (Por­tu­gal)
14–18 July, 2025

Dead­line 13 Jan­u­ary 2025: https://apa2025.eventqualia.net/pt/inicio/painéis/chamada-comunicações/
We invite sub­mis­sions of papers in both Span­ish and Eng­lish that pro­vide new insights on this topic.

Abstract:
Care prac­tices have sig­nif­i­cant rela­tions to people’s exis­tence and social repro­duc­tion. Care­giv­ing involves a com­plex inter­ac­tion between stake­hold­ers in var­i­ous sce­nar­ios (domes­tic, insti­tu­tion­al, and com­mu­ni­ty-based). Indeed, care is pro­vid­ed through a chang­ing con­stel­la­tion of resources across fam­i­lies, the State, the mar­ket and civ­il soci­ety, all of which com­prise the insti­tu­tion­al struc­ture of social care. Sim­i­lar­ly, care is struc­tured not only by gen­der but also by age, class, and ethnic/national ori­gin. The tra­di­tion­al care options have been between domes­tic care and res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties. Insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion in a res­i­den­tial care home is an option that is usu­al­ly reserved for wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tions of depen­dence. Age­ing in one’s own home is an aspi­ra­tion, but this often takes place in hous­ing and neigh­bor­hoods that are not adapt­ed to the needs of the age­ing, accel­er­at­ing their vul­ner­a­ble process­es. In addi­tion, ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­par­i­ties (urban-rur­al areas) also account for inequal­i­ties in the access of care.
Our pan­el is ori­ent­ed towards iden­ti­fy­ing the ele­ments that can give rise to alter­na­tive for­mu­las for social care, which make it pos­si­ble to shift the cen­tral role played by fam­i­lies and women, favor­ing the dig­ni­fi­ca­tion of paid and unpaid care. To under­stand the expe­ri­ences in new care envi­ron­ments that try to fos­ter new forms of artic­u­la­tion between social agents and their care sur­round­ings (cohous­ing, care ecosys­tems, com­mu­ni­ties, etc.). We are inter­est­ed in con­tri­bu­tions that, based on ethno­graph­ic work and the­o­ret­i­cal reflec­tion, ana­lyze inno­v­a­tive for­mu­las in the artic­u­la­tion of long-term care providers, iden­ti­fy­ing their scope and lim­i­ta­tions when sub­vert­ing ter­ri­to­r­i­al, social and gen­der inequalities.

Perma­link

CfP for the spe­cial issue „Sociotech­ni­cal imag­i­nar­ies and prac­tices of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in health­care: rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing care or ampli­fy­ing new risks?” in the Health Risk and Soci­ety, co-edit­ed by Veron­i­ca Moret­ti and Francesco Miele.

We wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that crit­i­cal­ly explore the dual nature of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI): as a tool for inno­va­tion and as a sys­tem deeply embed­ded with­in com­plex social, tech­ni­cal, and eth­i­cal infra­struc­tures. This spe­cial issue aims to bal­ance the promise of AI with a crit­i­cal exam­i­na­tion of its risks, lim­i­ta­tions, and poten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in health­care contexts.

The full call for abstracts is attached. To par­tic­i­pate, please sub­mit a 500–800 word abstract by Feb­ru­ary 3, 2025. Authors of select­ed abstracts will be invit­ed to sub­mit full papers by July 21, 2025.

For any ques­tions or inquiries, feel free to con­tact me at our insti­tu­tion­al email: francesco.miele@dispes.units.it and veronica.moretti4@unibo.it

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DDD17: „POLITICS OF DEATH”
27–30 August 2025
Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht (Nether­lands)

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS

The Death, Dying and Dis­pos­al (DDD) Con­fer­ence is the bi-annu­al con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Death and Soci­ety (ASDS). The next edi­tion will be host­ed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht (Nether­lands) and online from Wednes­day 27 to Sat­ur­day 30 August 2025. For the upcom­ing DDD17 con­fer­ence, we invite ses­sions that explore the broad top­ic of the Pol­i­tics of Death. 

Despite appear­ing as a uni­ver­sal bio­log­i­cal event, death is and has nev­er been neu­tral. Instead, it is deeply entwined with issues of (in)equality, access, and pow­er dynam­ics. In today’s world, death is per­haps more politi­cized as it ever was before. Wars, envi­ron­men­tal crises, glob­al migra­tion pat­terns, and fail­ing states bring death close to our homes. At the same time, tech­no­log­i­cal, dig­i­tal, and med­ical advance­ments alter our approach­es to deal­ing with, think­ing about, research­ing, and work­ing with death. Such devel­op­ments are equal­ly inher­ent­ly polit­i­cal, both in their ori­gins and their applications.

As prac­ti­tion­ers and schol­ars, how do we nav­i­gate the polit­i­cal dimen­sions of death? How does the polit­i­cal shape our engage­ment with death? And how can we reflect on and poten­tial­ly change our own posi­tions with­in this polit­i­cal landscape?

For more infor­ma­tion on the con­fer­ence theme, please refer to our web­site: https://ddd17.sites.uu.nl/conference-theme/

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit a pro­pos­al for papers, orga­nized pan­els, round­ta­bles, work­shops, or oth­er for­mats by Sat­ur­day 30 Novem­ber 2024. No excep­tions to this dead­line are possible. 

We encour­age pro­pos­als in four types of ses­sion formats:

Organ­ised pan­els and indi­vid­ual papers

Pan­els will be struc­tured in the tra­di­tion­al man­ner of indi­vid­ual paper pre­sen­ta­tions. This will be four (4) pre­sen­ta­tions of 15 min­utes back-to-back, fol­lowed by a 30-minute dis­cus­sion on the pre­sen­ta­tions. All organ­ised pan­els are thus 90 min­utes. The pan­els will be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) for­mat, mean­ing paper pre­sen­ters can present from home. Dis­cus­sions will be orga­nized using chat-moderators.

Round­ta­bles

Round­ta­bles of 90 min­utes in which no more than five peo­ple dis­cuss a par­tic­u­lar theme or issue in front of (and sub­se­quent­ly with) an audi­ence. While a round­table may include short (approx. 5 min) contributions/presentations, the main idea is to cre­ate a live­ly debate, and not to focus on any one or mul­ti­ple presenter(s). To be able to cre­ate such debate, round­ta­bles will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Work­shops

Work­shops of 90 min­utes are char­ac­terised by exper­i­men­ta­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, inter­ac­tion and/or impro­vi­sa­tion. The aim of work­shops is to organ­ise col­lec­tive activ­i­ties that are open-end­ed and cul­ti­vate pos­si­bil­i­ties for sur­prise, nov­el­ty, and learn­ing. Work­shops will be designed as inter­ac­tive, reflex­ive ses­sions that pri­ori­tise explo­ration, rather than the dis­cus­sion of already estab­lished research results. To make true col­lab­o­ra­tion pos­si­ble and cre­ate safe space, the max­i­mum num­ber of per­sons per work­shop is 16 (includ­ing work­shop con­venors). The work­shops will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Oth­er

We wel­come you to share your ideas of oth­er pos­si­ble for­mats with us. If you would like to sug­gest a dif­fer­ent for­mat and/or are will­ing to run a ses­sion or activ­i­ty with a dif­fer­ent for­mat, please let us know by send­ing an email to DDD17@uu.nl. The DDD17 selec­tion com­mit­tee will then decide if and how to accom­mo­date your idea(s).

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17th bian­nu­al DDD con­fer­ence „The Pol­i­tics of Death”
The Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Death and Soci­ety (ASDS)
Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht
27–30 August 2025

Details:

Despite appear­ing as a uni­ver­sal bio­log­i­cal event, death is and has nev­er been neu­tral. Instead, it is deeply entwined with issues of (in)equality, access, and pow­er dynam­ics. In today’s world, death is per­haps more politi­cized as it ever was before. Wars, envi­ron­men­tal crises, glob­al migra­tion pat­terns, and fail­ing states bring death close to our homes. At the same time, tech­no­log­i­cal, dig­i­tal, and med­ical advance­ments alter our approach­es to deal­ing with, think­ing about, research­ing, and work­ing with death. Such devel­op­ments are equal­ly inher­ent­ly polit­i­cal, both in their ori­gins and their applications.

As prac­ti­tion­ers and schol­ars, how do we nav­i­gate the polit­i­cal dimen­sions of death? How does the polit­i­cal shape our engage­ment with death? And how can we reflect on and poten­tial­ly change our own posi­tions with­in this polit­i­cal landscape?

Pol­i­tics is every­where; every­thing is polit­i­cal. It’s woven into every facet of life, shap­ing how we live, die, and make sense of the worlds in between and beyond. It is the lens through which we address our biggest chal­lenges and seize new oppor­tu­ni­ties. It shapes our sense of right and wrong, fram­ing what we see as moral or immoral. It guides deci­sions, both con­scious­ly and uncon­scious­ly, in every set­ting – from the halls of gov­ern­ment to the inti­mate spaces of home. It spans for­mal author­i­ty and hid­den social pow­er, thread­ing through the spaces we inhab­it, the rules we fol­low, and the sym­bols we embrace. It exists between peo­ple, envi­ron­ments and species, influ­enc­ing every­thing from small exchanges to glob­al reg­u­la­tions. In every inter­ac­tion and insti­tu­tion, there’s an ele­ment of pol­i­tics. Because of this, pol­i­tics is every­where, and every­thing down to the small­est detail is inher­ent­ly political.

For more infor­ma­tion on the con­fer­ence theme, please refer to our web­site: https://ddd17.sites.uu.nl/conference-theme/

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit a pro­pos­al for papers, orga­nized pan­els, round­ta­bles, work­shops, or oth­er for­mats by Sat­ur­day 30 Novem­ber 2024. No excep­tions to this dead­line are possible.

We encour­age pro­pos­als in four types of ses­sion formats:

Organ­ised pan­els and indi­vid­ual papers

Pan­els will be struc­tured in the tra­di­tion­al man­ner of indi­vid­ual paper pre­sen­ta­tions. This will be four (4) pre­sen­ta­tions of 15 min­utes back-to-back, fol­lowed by a 30-minute dis­cus­sion on the pre­sen­ta­tions. All organ­ised pan­els are thus 90 min­utes. The pan­els will be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) for­mat, mean­ing paper pre­sen­ters can present from home. Dis­cus­sions will be orga­nized using chat-moderators.

Round­ta­bles

Round­ta­bles of 90 min­utes in which no more than five peo­ple dis­cuss a par­tic­u­lar theme or issue in front of (and sub­se­quent­ly with) an audi­ence. While a round­table may include short (approx. 5 min) contributions/presentations, the main idea is to cre­ate a live­ly debate, and not to focus on any one or mul­ti­ple presenter(s). To be able to cre­ate such debate, round­ta­bles will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Work­shops

Work­shops of 90 min­utes are char­ac­terised by exper­i­men­ta­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, inter­ac­tion and/or impro­vi­sa­tion. The aim of work­shops is to organ­ise col­lec­tive activ­i­ties that are open-end­ed and cul­ti­vate pos­si­bil­i­ties for sur­prise, nov­el­ty, and learn­ing. Work­shops will be designed as inter­ac­tive, reflex­ive ses­sions that pri­ori­tise explo­ration, rather than the dis­cus­sion of already estab­lished research results. To make true col­lab­o­ra­tion pos­si­ble and cre­ate safe space, the max­i­mum num­ber of per­sons per work­shop is 16 (includ­ing work­shop con­venors). The work­shops will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Oth­er

We wel­come you to share your ideas of oth­er pos­si­ble for­mats with us. If you would like to sug­gest a dif­fer­ent for­mat and/or are will­ing to run a ses­sion or activ­i­ty with a dif­fer­ent for­mat, please let us know by send­ing an email to DDD17@uu.nl. The DDD17 selec­tion com­mit­tee will then decide if and how to accom­mo­date your idea(s).

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CfP for the pan­el at the next con­fer­ence of the Soci­ety for Social Stud­ies of Sci­ence 2025
Seattle
3–7 September

‘Tem­po­ral­i­ties of bod­ies, tech­nolo­gies and their entan­gle­ments in the expe­ri­ence of dis­abil­i­ty and/or chron­ic illness’.

Chron­ic ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty have become a priv­i­leged place for tech­no­log­i­cal inter­ven­tion. Both are char­ac­ter­ized by the deploy­ment of tech­no­log­i­cal devices that aim to mit­i­gate, com­pen­sate for, or even pre­vent and slow down the loss of capac­i­ties, as well as alle­vi­ate or lim­it symp­toms. In this con­text, a var­ied array of tech­nolo­gies that dif­fer­ent­ly act on or inter­vene in bod­ies and places are intro­duced in people’s lives: tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are implant­ed in the body (e.g. insulin pumps and deep brain stim­u­la­tion), tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are attached to the body (pros­the­ses and orthoses) and/or tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are con­nect­ed both to the body and to a par­tic­u­lar place (tele­care and dial­y­sis equip­ment; exoskeletons). 

Regard­ing this ‘tech­no­log­i­cal care’ (Lancelot & Guchet, 2023), research in STS and empir­i­cal phi­los­o­phy of tech­nol­o­gy has main­ly focused on tech­no­log­i­cal use and appro­pri­a­tion, includ­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties there­of. How­ev­er vital and essen­tial these tech­nolo­gies may be in sus­tain­ing peo­ple in dai­ly life, atten­tion has scarce­ly been paid to their fragili­ty and people’s result­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty when they mal­func­tion, wear and tear, break and/or thus can no longer be used or have to be adjust­ed and/or used dif­fer­ent­ly (Oud­shoorn, 2020). 

These mate­r­i­al and exis­ten­tial dis­rup­tions and con­straints call for inquir­ing about the entan­gle­ments of dif­fer­ent tem­po­ral­i­ties of chron­ic liv­ing and dis­abil­i­ty: of bod­ies adjust­ing to chron­ic ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty and/or to tech­no­log­i­cal care; of the tech­nolo­gies them­selves (from their devel­op­ment to their every­day use, adap­ta­tion, mal­func­tions and main­te­nance) and the socio-mate­r­i­al infra­struc­tures that sup­port them; and of the rela­tions between them. We invite con­tri­bu­tions that address, empir­i­cal­ly and/or con­cep­tu­al­ly, tech­no­log­i­cal care and its temporalities.

Dead­line of the call for abstracts:

- Jan­u­ary 31, 2025
– Noti­fi­ca­tion of acceptance:
– March 15, 2025
– 4S 2025 in-per­son conference:
– Sep­tem­ber 3–7, 2025

Abstracts (250 words max) should be sub­mit­ted on the 4S web­site: https://bit.ly/3BtgXPh

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Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy Europe Con­fer­ence 2025 Vien­na: „Rede­f­i­n­i­tions of Health and Well-being
Call for Pan­els and Round­ta­bles is now OPEN

RZ_­MAEC-2025_­Call-for-Papers

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Call for papers for a spe­cial issue on: Con­tem­po­rary Changes in Med­ical­ly Assist­ed Repro­duc­tion: The Role of Social Inequal­i­ty and Social Norms
Social Inclu­sion Journal

Dead­line for Abstracts: 15.10.2025
Dead­line for Papers: 30.03.2025

Social Inclu­sion, peer-reviewed jour­nal indexed in the Social Sci­ences Cita­tion Index (Web of Sci­ence; Impact Fac­tor: 1.4) and Sco­pus (CiteScore: 3.5), wel­comes new and excit­ing research papers for its upcom­ing issue „Con­tem­po­rary Changes in Med­ical­ly Assist­ed Repro­duc­tion: The Role of Social Inequal­i­ty and Social Norms,” edit­ed by Anne-Kristin Kuh­nt, Jörg Rös­sel, and Heike Trappe.

Since, in 1978, the first baby con­ceived by in vit­ro fer­til­iza­tion was born, fur­ther tech­no­log­i­cal advances, like egg freez­ing, pre-implan­ta­tion diag­nos­tics, and gene edit­ing (CRISPR) have rev­o­lu­tion­ized the con­di­tions for human fer­til­i­ty. This the­mat­ic issue focus­es on how the social con­text, in par­tic­u­lar social inequal­i­ties and social norms, shapes atti­tudes towards these tech­nolo­gies, their use, and their impact. We are inter­est­ed in arti­cles that explore how atti­tudes and pub­lic dis­course on these tech­nolo­gies are shaped by pre­vail­ing gen­der norms and moral ori­en­ta­tions in societies.

Authors inter­est­ed in sub­mit­ting a paper to this issue are encour­aged to read the full call for papers here

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