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Dear Colleagues,

I enclose the invitation and call for papers (also as pdf attachment)   
for the symposium "Anthropology of Men, Masculinity and Health" to be   
held in Freie Universität Berlin in May 2009. We hope you will find it  
  of interest and be encouraged to attend.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Aleksandra Pytko


*INVITATION AND CALL FOR PAPERS*
Symposium ?Anthropology of Men, Masculinities and Health?

Freie Universität Berlin (FUB), 15-16.05.2009


For a long time ethnography was written by men for men and about men   
without any reference to gender hierarchies and men?s gendered   
subjectivities. Men were treated as unmarked category or normative   
baseline on which knowledge about a certain society or culture could   
be built upon. The Feminist and Postmodern Critique challenged   
patriarchal social science and raised awareness about the situation of  
  women within the gendered politics of everyday life. Subsequent to   
this movement there has been a growing number of studies focusing on   
men as gendered subjects, bound to construct their identity in   
relation to subordinated women and femininities, as well as in   
opposition to a number of marginalized ?other? masculinities.   
Ethnography has played a pivotal role in demonstrating the   
cross-cultural variance in models for and of manhood, and in   
recognizing the intersections of gender identities with social class,   
ethnicity, images of ?race? and sexuality. In this context, major   
attention has been paid to discourses about divergent models of   
masculinity as historically constructed ideal types challenged through  
  illness, suffering, and unemployment in post-industrial,   
late-capitalist societies.

In recent times, a growing number of scholars call for a shift of   
focus from discourses about hegemonic or subordinate masculinities,   
towards a more intricate study of social practice including the   
ambiguous and context specific performance of manhood. While there are  
  still certain dominant models of and for masculinity (and  
femininity),  complex modes of switching between divergent subject  
positions within  time and space are found to be at odds with  
monolithic identities both  self-ascribed and attributed by  
conventional social science.  Notwithstanding some notable exceptions  
the embodiment of manhood in  relation to the somatisation of social  
relations, as well as the  bodily expression of illness and suffering  
are largely  under-theorized. By extension little is known about how  
medical  technologies and public health change, if at all, male  
patient?s and  healer?s subjectivities. Although gender has received  
significant  attention in Medical Anthropology, research was dominated  
by female  studies. Men?s health and men in medical practice are still  
  under-researched issues. There are few factors determining this  
state  of affairs. One of them is traditionally strong connection of  
Medical  Anthropology to marginalized and oppressed groups, and  
feminist  critique. Another factor is various masculinity ideals  
throughout the  world that influence men?s mutedness in the context of  
illness, pain  and suffering. This has also a negative impact on  
conventional  methodologies in Medical Anthropology.

We are looking for papers that will offer fresh and various approaches  
  to manhood and masculinity in the context of health, theory,   
methodology and practice. For purposes of this symposium and a planned  
  volume we will not define masculinity or manhood, but will rather   
invite authors to work with diverse definitions and understandings of   
the term and phenomenon, thus leaving it fluid. Also, we are   
interested in a variety of topics related to male presence in the   
field of medicine. Some issues might include, but are not limited to:

-        Men?s reproductive health and the biopolitics of masculinity
-        Gender-based violence and public health
-        Men?s occupational health
-        Men and Sexually Transmittable Infections
-        Preventive medicine and male health practices; health and   
illness behavior, and health seeking
-        Men?s health movements
-        Female dominated practices (e.g. abortion) and male identity
-        Men in patient?s family and healing process
-        Knowledge production / gendering knowledge
-        Male professionals working with medical science and technology
-        Medicalization and masculinity including ageing, erectile   
disfunction etc.
-        Challenges in health care in a multicultural world with focus  
  on different concepts and norms of masculinity
-        Men and substance (ab)use
-        Changing directions in treatment of men
-        Presentation of men and medical issues in media, literature,   
movies, theatre, art etc.



We invite scholars and researchers with background in anthropology,   
ethnology, qualitative sociology etc. to submit proposals for the   
symposium. The volume which will follow this meeting will consist of   
thematic chapters based on submitted articles of the contributors. We   
do not accept works that have already been published. Participants   
will be given access to all papers no later than a week in advance of   
the symposium.

Please send an abstract (300 words), affiliation and short   
presentation of the author(s) to Aleksandra Pytko -   
[log in to unmask]

Deadline for abstracts is 14. February 2009.

Notification about accepted papers will be sent within 2 weeks after   
the deadline.

If an abstract is accepted, a full draft paper should be developed and  
  submitted by 1. Mai 2009.

There will be no fees for the symposium. Nevertheless, participants   
are requested to cover and arrange for travel and accommodation on   
their own.

If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us.


Organizing Committee:
Aleksandra Pytko ? MA in Social Anthropology, University of Oslo,   
Norway. Currently she is working as a research assistant at the   
Faculty of Health Sciences, Oslo University College and Department of   
Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo.   
Contact: [log in to unmask]

Danijel Loncar ? MA in Anthropology and MA in Archaeology from   
University of Zagreb, Croatia. Currently he is an independent   
researcher cooperating on various health-related projects with United   
Nations Development Program (UNDP) and UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS.   
Contact: [log in to unmask]

Hanspeter Reihling ? MA in Social Anthropology at Freie Universität   
Berlin, Germany. He is a PhD candidate currently working as research   
associate at the Institute for Social Anthropology, FUB.
Contact: [log in to unmask]

Supported by: Professor Hansjörg Dilger ? Institute for Social   
Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Contact:   
[log in to unmask]




-- 
Aleksandra Pytko
Oslo University College
Faculty of Health Sciences
http://home.hio.no/~aleksa/

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