Dear all,

Here is a

CALL FOR PAPERS

10th EASA Biennial Conference
Ljubljana, Slovenia
August 26-30, 2008
*
**

From medical pluralism to therapeutic plurality: medical anthropology and
the politics of diversity, knowledge, and experience from multiple
perspectives*

ConvenorsLeonardo Menegola
Uršula Lipovec Čebron (Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of
Ljubljana)<ursula.lipovec%40gmail.com?subject=EASA%202008%20Workshop%20-%20From%20medical%20pluralism%20to%20therapeutic%20plurality%3A%20medical%20anthropology%20and%20the%20politics%20of%20diversity%2C%20knowledge%2C%20and%20experience%20from%20multiple%20perspectives>
Clara Saraiva (Institute for Scientific Tropical
Research)<clarasaraiva%40fcsh.unl.pt?subject=EASA%202008%20Workshop%20-%20From%20medical%20pluralism%20to%20therapeutic%20plurality%3A%20medical%20anthropology%20and%20the%20politics%20of%20diversity%2C%20knowledge%2C%20and%20experience%20from%20multiple%20perspectives>
<leonardo.menegola%40gmail.com%2Cursula.lipovec%40gmail.com%2Cclarasaraiva%40fcsh.unl.pt?subject=EASA%202008%20Workshop%20-%20From%20medical%20pluralism%20to%20therapeutic%20plurality%3A%20medical%20anthropology%20and%20the%20politics%20of%20diversity%2C%20knowledge%2C%20and%20experience%20from%20multiple%20perspectives>
Short Abstract

This workshop will explore the tensions and complementarities between
biomedicine and 'other' medicines, and the ways in which social
representations and cultural constructions embedded in the encounters
between "the West and the Rest" migrate, transform, or collide at the
intersections of emergent scenarios of contemporaneity. We will outline
dynamics of exclusion and inclusion between biomedical and alternative
practitioners of healing. We will examine the interactions occurring between
distinct discursive practices and systems of meaning relating to symptoms,
illnesses, models of affliction and wider socio-moral notions of personhood
and the Self. We will focus on the embodiments, feelings, and sensations
through which people make sense of suffering, illness, and healing, and on
the political and performative meaning of such experiences. We will explore
the strategic references made to "experience" by non-hegemonic medicines
that rely on the creation of experiences of intersubjectivity and mutuality
between healers and patients.
Long Abstract

This workshop will explore different aspects of the tensions and
complementarities between biomedicine and 'other' medicines. Through
ethnographic evidences, we will contribute to the study of diverse practices
of suffering and healing by focusing on how social representations and
cultural constructions embedded in the encounters between "the West and the
Rest" migrate, transform, or collide at the intersections of emergent
scenarios of contemporaneity. At the crossroad of medical pluralism and
therapeutic plurality, human experiences, social representations, and
culturally embedded practices linked to "suffering" will reveal a vast
ethnographic territory, across which migrational processes will constitute
one among the transversal concerns of this workshop.

We will outline dynamics of exclusion and inclusion between biomedical and
alternative practitioners of healing in contexts of education and
associations; and within processes of legalization in institutional
practices and formal professionalization. We will examine the interactions
occurring between distinct discursive practices and systems of meaning—as
carried out and reproduced by different social actors—to investigate
socially relevant ways in which diverging, pre-established schemes and
representations interact with reference to symptoms, illnesses, models of
affliction and wider socio-moral notions of personhood and the Self. By
looking at the embodiments, feelings, and sensations through which people
make sense of suffering, illness, and healing, we will focus on the
political and performative meaning of such experiences as forms of
resistance, opposition, defence from systems of hegemony, and on the
politically authorized, socially recognized ways of performing both
sufferance and healing. We will explore the strategic references made to
"experience" (e.g. through the mundane world of sensing) by non-hegemonic
medicines that rely on the creation of experiences of intersubjectivity and
mutuality between healers and patients.

Section 1: Cultural Diversity as Knowledge and Practice

This section deals with the biomedical discourse on diversity and
cross-cultural communication and, at the same time, the absence of
discussion on underestimated aspects of this relationship. By focusing on
the building of knowledge and the articulation of criteria of efficacy
(clinical trials, standardization and quality control of other "traditional"
medicines,) we will explore the social use of diversity in public health
policies, and we'll explore the boundaries between culture and affliction by
analyzing the articulation of different therapeutic theories and practices
among multiple social actors.

Section 2: Politics and Challenges of Integration

This section introduces a critical medical anthropological discussion of
various concepts of medical pluralism, and aims to draw ethnographic
evidence on the ways in which biomedicine can coexist and/or interweave with
other medicines. From both an applied and a theoretical perspective, the
analysis will mainly focus on different strategic perspectives of actors and
institutions involved, such as: users, complementary and traditional
healers, medical professionals, health-care institutions, insurance
companies, etc, as well as on the complexity of their mutual relationships
in various ethnographic contexts, especially in Latin America.

Section 3: The Medical Anthropology of "Experience:" Illness, Suffering,
Healing

This section will explore the socio-political meanings of "experience" in
different contexts of medical hegemony and pluralism. "Experience"
identifies and differentiates both suffering and healing practices; it
enters mechanisms of efficacy, apparatuses of techniques and the practical
knowledge required to administer them. We will examine "who" experiences
suffering, unease, processes of healing; "who or what" manages or interprets
such experiences and administrates the dynamics of cure; and how social and
medical systems locally structure (translate, legitimize, reshape, deny)
particular facets of experience.

Section 4: Round Table: Healing as Plurality, Politics, and Experience

The discussants, Chairs, and convenors of the workshop will partake in a
final Round table. The discussion will address "diversity" in its medical
anthropological declination, both as migration of particular individuals and
groups, and as encounter (hybridization, borrowing, translation, struggle)
between different practices of suffering and healing. We will gaze at
cultural diversity and medical pluralism through a multiple perspective and
threefold socio-cultural lens: as a cultural construction, as a social
strategy, and as a political performance. We will adopt multiple
perspectives (e.g. focusing on institutions, cultural heterogeneity, and the
particularities of experiences of falling sick, being ill, returning to a
'sense of ordinary life'). We will thus contribute to the social and
political analysis of the epistemological heterogeneity of socially
co-habiting healing systems, issues of therapeutic (or scientific) efficacy,
and dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion. Finally, we will reflect on
the epistemological challenges of an increasingly "pluralist" Medical
Anthropology, where plural scenarios and objects give way to
plural-synthetic conceptual frameworks and methods.

*Chair*: Melissa Park, Chiara Pussetti, and Carlotta Bagaglia
*Discussants*: Mariella Pandolfi (UQAM), Galina Lindqvist (Stockholm
University) and Dough Hollan (UCLA)
Papers should be proposed using the online form (see
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa08/paperproposal.php5?PanelID=364)

You can access this workshop and the link for proposals directly at :
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa08/panels.php5?PanelID=364

Please forward this to anybody likely to be interested!

Further information
Leonardo Menegola
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