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]
----------------------
HS Lambert, Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology
Department of Social Medicine
University of Bristol
[log in to unmask]
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