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***apologies for cross posting*** Please join us for our next London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Medical Anthropology seminar with Caroline Parker on Tuesday 10th December 4-5.15pm in the Jerry Morris B room, LSHTM, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SH. This seminar series is funded by the LSHTM Anthropology and Sociology Hub<https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres-projects-groups/anthropology-sociology-hub>. Abstract: "On Boredom: Keeping busy when there's nothing to do in a Puerto Rican Addiction Shelter" Initially, La Casita's ideology of moralized work patterns and time-discipline seems a throwback to the 19th century factory floor and tool of market discipline. A closer look at residents' experiences, however, reveals that busyness has less to do with capitalist subject formation than with finding an alternative way of living when excluded from the market economy. Adherence to a regular work schedule is actually very difficult owing to the limited supply of socially necessary tasks. When there is nothing to do, make-work is introduced as a surrogate placeholder, provoking frustration and boredom. These, in turn, become challenges that "working on my personality" can address, and this secular-spiritual exercise can come to occupy pride of place in residents' life plans. If the capitalist project turns on the productive commodification of time, La Casita's work ethic - despite official avowals to the contrary - is an attempt to convert unproductive time into an ascetic practice of ceaseless self-work. Though not always successful, keeping busy becomes a way that residents carve a meaningful way of living from an overabundance of time. Caroline Parker<https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/caroline.parker.html> is the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her work combines approaches in cultural and medical anthropology and public health with a geographical focus on the Caribbean and the urban United States. Her anthropological work engages questions of social suffering, poverty, and inequality; addiction therapeutics, labor, and the carceral state, and liberalism, boredom, and temporality. For more information please contact one of the organisers: Annelieke Driessen ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) Fred Martineau ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) Melissa Parker ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) Annelieke Driessen Research Fellow (Medical Anthropology) London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine 15-17 Tavistock Place, room 110, London, WC1H 9SH Tel: 020 7958 8295 ext. 8295 More information about the Forms of Care project<http://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/formsofcare/> Most recent article: 'Attending to difference: Enacting individuals in food provision for residents with dementia<https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.13004>' The Thinking With Dementia<http://somatosphere.net/thinking-with-dementia> Series ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/Anthropology-Matters * * 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 * To unsubscribe please click here: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ANTHROPOLOGY-MATTERS&A=1 ***************************************************************