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>
> MAAH 2008 - 5th conference on Medical Anthropology At Home
>
> Medical anthropology, health care systems and the client society -
> investigating interactions of practice, power and science
>
> Call for papers
>
> Deadline for abstracts: September 1st, 2007
>
> Place of venue: Denmark, The Sandbjerg Estate - Aarhus University
> Conference Centre, Sandbjergvej 102, 6400 Sønderborg (southern  
> Denmark),http://www.sandbjerg.dk/en/index.php
>
> Date: 8th of May to 11th of May 2008
>
> Introduction:
> We would like to point to medical anthropology*s growing engagement  
> and cooperation with local medical institutions and medical  
> research units as not only isolated approaches to research of  
> health and illness, but as one leg of a triangle of interconnected  
> social and scientific processes with certain consequences. The  
> triangle consists of medical anthropology, the health care system  
> and the client society. This triangle is made up by three powerful  
> but also interdependent actors that influence each other and  
> presumably exhibit a shift of balances compared with former years  
> of medical anthropological research.
>
> We would like to invite papers for MAAH 2008 that address the above  
> mentioned triangle of medical anthropology interacting with health  
> system and client. As more specific subthemes within the triangle  
> we have chosen 1) chronic illness, 2) multiple medical realities  
> and 3) medical anthropology as a science undergoing changes. Papers  
> addressing the overall topic or one of the subthemes are all welcome.
>
> Invited key note speakers: Susan Reynolds Whyte, professor,  
> Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen University,  
> Denmark Nikolas Rose, professor, London School of Economics and  
> Political Science, UK Annemiek Richters, professor, Department of  
> Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Center,  
> the Netherlands Giovanni Pizza, senior researcher, lecturer,  
> Dipartimento Uomo & Territorio, University of Perugia, Italy.  
> Cheryl Mattingly, professor, Department of Anthropology, USC  
> College, USA
>
> Abstracts from the key note speakers will appear later.
>
> Subthemes 1) Chronic illness Chronic illness has become the  
> headline of many political and medical agendas during the last  
> years. The health systems have to restructure their organizational  
> form and adapt to the growing number of presumed chronic patients,  
> that is patients with diabetes, multiple sclerosis, functional  
> disorders, chronic heart disease etc. Models of shared care,  
> patient education and self-care are tried out and believed from  
> medical hold in many countries to be a solution to the predicted  
> economic and medical burden. What topics are central in medical  
> anthropology when dealing with chronic disease and what kind of  
> development do they represent? How is the concept of the patient a  
> as complex phenomenon constituted in an interplay with both science  
> and medical or social intervention?  How to grasp and perceive the  
> problem between representation of chronic suffering and the  
> feedback within the health sector in terms of policy papers and  
> intervention possibilities? What may structural or discursive  
> analyses of political strategies inform us about the concept of  
> chronic disease?
>
> 2) Multiple medical realities Another growing analytic field is the  
> constitution of the health system and the developments within the  
> health system. To what extent are multiple medical realities a  
> growing reality both within the biomedical health sector and  
> outside the biomedical domain? Do we experience a development of -  
> or a renewed gaze on - a plural medical system linking closely to  
> plural social realities? Multiplicity and difference within a  
> health system is in general acknowledged, but is approached during  
> recent years with a special focus on the concepts of body and self  
> related to a complex concept of health and illness. Body and self  
> is not limited to the individual body but comprises both the social  
> and the political body as introduced by Scheper-Hughes and Lock in  
> 1987. Different social realities exist within the same health care  
> system with different social practices that create oppositions  
> between them. In this sense the multiple medical and social  
> realities have both affinities and opposing relations - considering  
> for example different health or risk concepts in the complex  
> reality of health promotion. One could ask how is the notion of  
> self and body connected to changes in pluralistic practice? What  
> kind of medical social practices are developing at the level of  
> everyday lived experience? How is the interaction between those and  
> the official health system perceived? How to talk about reciprocity  
> between multiple medical and social realities and at what level?
>
> 3) Medical anthropology as a science undergoing change More and  
> more medical anthropological research takes place in direct  
> collaboration with biomedicine, which in many ways has opened up  
> for alternative perspectives on illness and health within  
> biomedicine. This collaboration is not only a question of plain  
> interdisciplinarity but also of power relations and political  
> epistemology. What happens to MA and one*s position as a researcher  
> in this collaboration? What happens to representation and intention  
> when biomedicine, international health or medical sociology wants  
> you? Former discussions on this have been held in e.g. the  
> anglosaxon world but for now we would like to move on to discuss  
> theoretical and methodological developments based on collaboration.  
> For example one experience for medical anthropologists lies at the  
> level of distinction, e.g. the sharpening of arguments, methodology  
> and goal of particular projects. A sharpening which is fruitful for  
> the consistency of any research but that also often has a certain  
> influence on e.g. sampling procedures. To what extent is or should  
> the research process be guided pragmatically by being *at home* or  
> by strict methodological differences -whatever they are? What are  
> the theoretical implications for a final analysis?At another level  
> we find transformation and adjustment of anthropological approaches  
> to health problems, formulated by and large by biomedicine or other  
> medical fields. Mixed methodology is a challenging approach in this  
> field but is often a tool-based methodological approach instead of  
> an epistemological approach. What happens to contextualisation and  
> critical scientific approach, when it is often left aside to give  
> space to the demand for applicability? What happens to  
> representation of anthropological knowledge? Are new kinds of valid  
> knowledge being developed and/or new standards for qualitative  
> research?
>
> Abstracts should be sent to [log in to unmask], deadline September 1st  
> 2007.Max: 250 words
>
> (The subsequent deadline for paper submission will be February 1st  
> 2008)
>
> Participants: We take the permission to limit the number of  
> participants with abstracts/papers to 30 and we will therefore go  
> through the submitted abstracts and possibly have to make a  
> selection on the basis of relevance to the conference topics. For  
> each paper we will appoint an opponent among the participants.  
> Paper presentation will be limited to 30 minutes including remarks  
> from the opponent and discussion. More about these things later.
>
> Price: Preliminary price per person for the whole conference (3  
> nights with full board): 400 EURO. The conference organizers will  
> try to raise funds for the conference and the price might be  
> reduced. We will keep you informed about this.
>
> Transports: There are several possibilities of fly routes and we  
> would like to suggest that your destination will be one of three:  
> Hamburg (Germany), Billund or Århus (Denmark). We will try to  
> arrange bus transport from these 3 airports to the conference  
> venue. Later we will inform you further about transport possibilities
>
> Valuta: Please note that the currency in Denmark is Danish Kroner  
> (DKK) and not EURO
>
> Any questions regarding the conference are welcome and should be  
> sent to Mette Bech Risør, [log in to unmask], Research Clinic for  
> Functional Disorders, Aarhus University Hospital or Bjarke Paarup,  
> [log in to unmask], Department of Ethnography and Anthropology,  
> Aarhus University.
>
> The organizers are preparing a homepage for the conference and all  
> further information will be conveyed via this homepage. We will let  
> you know when it is ready and running.
>
> On behalf of the MAAH Scientific Committee Bjarke Paarup and Mette  
> Bech Risør
>
>
> Mette Bech Risør
> antropolog, mag.art., ph.d.
> Forskningsklinikken for Funktionelle Lidelser
> Barthsgade 5, 1.
> 8200 Århus N
> Tlf: 89 49 43 29
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>

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