Workshop CfP: Care in Asia: beyond and across a clinic

Emilija Zabiliute Announcement
Location
Denmark
Subject Fields
Anthropology, Area Studies, Asian History / Studies, Health and Health Care, Social Work

Workshop call for papers: Care in Asia: beyond and across a clinic

Funding: Limited travel funding is available for PhD and postdoc scholars. The workshop is funded by the ADI - Asian Dynamics Initiative of the University of Copenhagen.

Submission guidelines: The abstract should be no longer than 150 words and sent to emilija.zabiliute@gmail.com. In the application, please include your name, email, formal affiliation and whether you would need partial travel funding or no.

Deadline for abstract submission: July 10, 2017 

Date and Time: September 28-29, 2017.

Venue: NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Description:

While care is widely discussed across feminist studies and anthropology, it remains still undertheorized and subject to western-centric conceptualizations, as some recent studies point out (Aulino 2016). Frequently, explorations of care practices are limited to specific sites of inquiry – medical institutions or domestic space. For instance, scholars explore how care occurs at the clinics, and how it intertwines with knowledge production, governance of bodies and subject formation. However, in Asia (but to a large extent elsewhere as well), care is dispersed across a complex terrain of healthcare ecologies. Firstly, anthropologists have since long also been interested in care generated by relations, such as kin. Secondly, numerous studies show that healing (and thus care) takes place in and across diverse biomedical and ‘traditional’ medical institutions. Still, in attempts to conceptualize it, care is often designated as ‘self-care’; and familial or ‘traditional’ forms of care often remain to be viewed as hindrances for hegemonic biomedical care.

This call for papers addresses scholars working on care in the Asian region. The workshop invites participants to think about how care amidst illnesses or disorders is diversified and extended beyond and across a multiplicity of health institutions in Asia. For instance, how family care intersects with institutional care, and how care becomes enmeshed in larger relational projects among persons. Or, how care is shaped by a number of institutions, that may be underlined by different forms of medical/interventionist knowledge and health epistemologies, such as ‘unlicensed’ or ‘traditional’ practitioners. Rather than thinking of these sites of care as incommensurable and generating conflicting and burdensome situations, the workshop invites participants to address how diversified care underlines overall patient/carer experience, and what forms of knowledge it produces. At the same time, the workshop will open up possibilities for reconceptualising care through an inquiry into coexistent diversity of its sites and actors.

While care is widely discussed across feminist studies and anthropology, it remains still undertheorized and subject to western-centric conceptualizations, as some recent studies point out (Aulino 2016). Frequently, explorations of care practices are limited to specific sites of inquiry – medical institutions or domestic space. For instance, scholars explore how care occurs at the clinics, and how it intertwines with knowledge production, governance of bodies and subject formation. However, in Asia (but to a large extent elsewhere as well), care is dispersed across a complex terrain of healthcare ecologies. Firstly, anthropologists have since long also been interested in care generated by relations, such as kin. Secondly, numerous studies show that healing (and thus care) takes place in and across diverse biomedical and ‘traditional’ medical institutions. Still, in attempts to conceptualize it, care is often designated as ‘self-care’; and familial or ‘traditional’ forms of care often remain to be viewed as hindrances for hegemonic biomedical care.

This call for papers addresses scholars working on care in the Asian region. The workshop invites participants to think about how care amidst illnesses or disorders is diversified and extended beyond and across a multiplicity of health institutions in Asia. For instance, how family care intersects with institutional care, and how care becomes enmeshed in larger relational projects among persons. Or, how care is shaped by a number of institutions, that may be underlined by different forms of medical/interventionist knowledge and health epistemologies, such as ‘unlicensed’ or ‘traditional’ practitioners. Rather than thinking of these sites of care as incommensurable and generating conflicting and burdensome situations, the workshop invites participants to address how diversified care underlines overall patient/carer experience, and what forms of knowledge it produces. At the same time, the workshop will open up possibilities for reconceptualising care through an inquiry into coexistent diversity of its sites and actors.

Contact Information

Emilija Zabiliute (postdoc NIAS - Nordic Institute for Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen)

Email: emilija.zabiliute@gmail.com, ez@css.ku.dk

 

Contact Email
emilija.zabiliute@gmail.com