******************************************************
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
******************************************************
Call for abstracts for a panel on:
“What is life worth? Exploring biomedical interventions, survival and
the politics of life”
Co-convenors: Dr Rebecca Marsland (University of Edinburgh) and Dr
Ruth Prince (Cambridge University).
International Conference of the Society for Medical Anthropology
September 24 - 27, 2009 at Yale University
Deadline for Abstracts: 10 April
Recent debates about technologies of ‘life’ raise questions about what
it means to be human, and the nature of our relationship with
biomedicine. Foucault’s work on the ‘care of the self’, and Nikolas
Rose’s proposals about ‘contemporary biopolitics’, have influenced
many recent studies in medical anthropology, but these do not fully
resonate with all the sites in which we work. Underlying these
concepts are practices which have mainly been available to elite
groups in society – the ‘art of living’ in ancient Greece, was
practiced by wealthy men, not women or slaves; and the required
techniques for an optimization and molecularisation of life that Rose
argues are at the centre of a ‘contemporary biopolitics’ in Europe and
North America are not easily available to many people. These concepts
also take for granted an individualised ethos of care, and so we must
consider how this plays out in locations where a public morality
shapes interactions with biopolitical regimes of care. Thus we ask
where the ‘edges’ of biopolitics lie and what happens in such spaces?
This panel seeks to analyse critically the current fascination with
biopolitics through empirical studies of regimes of care and the
relations shaping them in sites where biomedical technology or
techniques of self-care are either not easily accessible, available or
realistic for local populations. We aim to examine the ‘inbetween’
space, where contemporary biopolitics meets other medical
interventions, and is played out within – and indeed shaping –
particular moral economies. So, we might ask whether or how local
understandings of biology and corporeality are affected by genetic or
laboratory technologies that might not even be available or are
available only to select groups of people? What alternative forms of
‘self-care’ are available to those who share a ‘biological identity’,
and how important are these identities in contexts where poverty is
still responsible for the burden of illness? Indeed, to what extent is
‘self-care’ even available as a technique for those whose primary role
is as carer for others, and in a context where an alternative public
morality to that of biomedicine is operating, or where people are
simply struggling to get enough food to survive? Which organizations
and which social groups are spearheading these interventions and what
effects are they having on local economies of care? If biomedical
technologies of ‘optimisation’ are not available, are older techniques
such as diet, spirituality, indigenous medicines, and careful self-
positioning within public networks of moral behaviour reoriented
towards these new goals? Equally how are local experts deploying the
new ideas available within this ‘contemporary biopolitics’ and using
them to shape public debate? What forms of social triage are
developing in such contexts, and what are their consequences? For
example, how do these emerging economies of care, treatment, health
and illness relate to biological identities as well as to social
distinctions such as class and gender, and with what effects?
The panel thus aims to situate biomedical interventions – medicines,
tests, counselling, care and other technologies; the expertise and
experts that practice them; and forms of biomedical triage – not only
in relation to emerging biological identities but also within broader
moral economies of health, illness, treatment and care.
Please send abstracts of 200 words to [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]
no later than the 10th April.
For further details about the conference see: http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/smaconference/
Please note that all panel participants will have to register on the
conference website by the 15th April.
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers *
***************************************************************
|