Call for papers for a workshop during the
Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society for Anthropology
30 November to 1 December 2007 in Basel


â??Health on the Moveâ?? â??
Health and Illness in a Globalising World.

Globalisation and its multifaceted effects have an increasing impact 
worldwide on medical reality. The various current transformations challenge 
conventional boundaries of place and time as well in respect of health and 
illness. Medical anthropology has not yet fully accepted this challenge, it 
has elaborated social science concepts of globalisation so far only to a 
lesser extent. Hence, this panel will serve as forum aiming at a first 
review of current works dealing with this topic. At the same time, we will 
explicitly leave open the topic as broad as possible, for instance, varying 
from sub-Saharan migrants and their health in Switzerland, appropriation of 
Chinese drugs in urban Tanzania or the social construction of ART by 
HIV-positive Brazilians to virtual â??tele-heart surgeryâ?? in a health 
district centre of the Papua New Guinean  Highlands.

The empirical concept of â??Health Transitionâ?? involves transformations 
such  as demographic, epidemiological and socio-cultural processes, 
urbanisation/migration and change of lifestyle. Medical anthropology 
research into the effects of these manifold transitions are only at the 
beginning, for example the rapid ageing of societies worldwide and its 
increased need of care, the gradual shift of health profils towards chronic 
and mostly degenerative illnesses in Africa, Asia, and South/Central 
America, health maintenance in rapidly urbanising areas in â??countries in 
the Southâ??, or the impact of new trendy nutritional habits  on individual 
health.

The increased geographical mobility of people challenges the borders of 
national health care systems and presents a growing health risk not only 
because of transmittable germs, but also in view of road casualties 
worldwide. Medical traditions and methods like Ayurveda medicine and 
acupuncture as well as epidemics like SARS and avian flu spread rapidly 
from Asia to Africa and Europe. In the reverse direction, the global trade 
of highly effective pharmaceuticals and high-tech methods from Europe and 
North America results in new hopes and needs on local level in African and 
Asian communities. Along with these globally traded material goods and 
intellectual concepts there is also a flow of meanings, ideas and believes 
which will be appropriated in respect of the local context and receive a 
reinterpretation in most cases and so influencing for example the use of 
drugs or the etiological understanding of HIV/AIDS. We should bear in mind 
that both patients and therapists move worldwide to an increasing degree, 
for instance in rural-urban networks, as part of therapeutic tourism in 
so-called low-cost countries, or as providers of alternative medicine on 
the internet. Thus, concepts of a â??multisited medical anthropologyâ?? 
could  be anticipated.

All these mobilities and transformations increasingly challenge historical 
and contemporary understandings of body and mind, wellbeing, health and 
illness as well as risk and vulnerability in our own societies and those of 
our global neighbours. They force individuals, social groups and societies 
to get involved with existential questions in everyday life, in science and 
in politics. Therefore, this panel addresses to scientists who are 
interested in these translocal aspects and global â??landscapesâ?? relating 
to health and illness and who are engaged in these fields.

Joint Panel: Institute of Social Anthropology, University Basel, and 
â??Medical Anthropology Switzerlandâ?? (MAS SEG)

Abstracts of maximum 500 words must be sent to Piet van Eeuwijk before 
15.06.2007.

Conference languages are: German, French and English

Kindly note that the organizers cannot offer any grants for travel and 
accommodation.

Panel Convenors: Piet van Eeuwijk, Ethnologisches Seminar der Universität 
Basel, â??Medical Anthropology Switzerlandâ??/MAS SEG, 
[log in to unmask]

Brigit Obrist, Ethnologisches Seminar der Universität Basel, â??Medical 
Anthropology Switzerlandâ??/MAS SEG, [log in to unmask]

Katja Winzeler, Institut für Sozialanthropologie der Universität Bern, 
,Medical Anthropology Switzerlandâ??/MAS SEG, [log in to unmask]