Call for papers for the 2nd workshop: How to study contestation of health and wellbeing? Methodological and epistemological approaches
17-18 November 2022, Umeå University, Sweden
Medical knowledge and expertise have been increasingly contested from a number of fronts in recent years. Vaccine hesitancy has emerged as an important political and public health concern, articulating critique of and distrust in medical research and health authorities. Food and nutrition are topics of intense ethical and political debate where official nutrition recommendations are frequently challenged by those drawing on experience-based knowledge and new sources of health authority, such as food bloggers or nutrition coaches. Complementary and alternative medicine, along with popular psychology self-help and New Age spiritualities, have been gaining popularity and offering
alternative forms of care and healing.
What all these cases have in common is that they often stand in conflicted relationship to biomedical and professional psychological notions of health and wellbeing and challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge. At stake in these conflicts is what counts as evidence and expertise and how such definitions are drawn, recognized and evaluated. Experience-based knowledge is frequently pitted against scientific knowledge and alternative conceptions of evidence and knowledge production are promoted. Moreover, the authority of traditional experts is often challenged by a host of new ‘cultural intermediaries’, such life coaches, spiritual healers and complementary and alternative therapists.
Engagement with expert knowledge can be complex and take different forms, ranging from outright rejection to a dialogue, mixing and matching of various healing systems, and various modes of collaboration and co-production of knowledge. The conflicts around health and wellbeing also have important political implications, raising questions, for example, about the Internet and social media in the production and dissemination of health knowledge, the role of social movements in the politicization of health and wellbeing, the legal regulation of various healing practices, and connections between conspiracy theories and the contestation of expertise and evidence.
The workshop seeks to bring together scholars to examine epistemological and methodological questions related to contestation of health and wellbeing. We will discuss a range of research materials and methodological approaches that have been employed in empirical research, to identify their strengths and limitations and to promote methodological development. The workshop addresses a number of established methods, such as ethnography, narrative analysis, bibliometrics, media analysis, survey and mixed methods, but we also welcome other methods. Furthermore, we address questions of positionality, reflexivity and the researcher-researched relationship as well as ethical questions in the research process. The workshop seeks to open up new methodological avenues and facilitate creative combining of different research methods and materials.
At the workshop, participants will present their own work (around 20 minutes per participant). We will facilitate thematic discussions, and offer key note lectures on the general theme.
The workshop is part of the workshop series “Contestation of Health and Wellbeing in the Nordic Countries” (COHEWE), funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS). This is the second workshop. The first workshop was on the theme of theorising contestation of health and wellbeing, hosted by University of Turku (20-21 January, 2022). The third workshop will focus on politics and wellbeing, hosted by University of Oslo in 2023.
Keynote speakers
Maria Kristiansen, Associate professor, University of Copenhagen
Pia Vuolanto, Senior research fellow, Tampere University
Application process and funding
Apply for the workshop by filling the online application form here.
Twenty-five participants will be accepted in the workshop. Priority will be given to early-career scholars working in the Nordic countries. A balanced representation from different disciplines will also be used as a selection criteria.
NOS-HS funding is used to cover the travel and accommodation costs up to ca. 350 EUR per participant, depending on the place of residence. We encourage the participants to try to avoid any extra costs and book their travel as soon as possible. We also encourage participants to prioritise travelling by train, bus and ferry.
Organizing committee
Suvi Salmenniemi, Professor, University of Turku, Finland
Jenny-Ann Brodin Danell, Associate professor, Umeå University, Sweden
Ole Jacob Madsen, Professor, University of Oslo, Norway
Maria Kristiansen, Associate professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Important dates
• 31 May 2022: Deadline for applications
• 15 June 2022: Notification of acceptance
• 17-18 November 2022: Workshop in Umeå