Call for papers: Politics of Health, Illness and Wellbeing: Conflicts, Controversies and Contestations

7-8 June 2023, University of Oslo

Keynote speakers:

Emil Øversveen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

China Mills, City University of London

The workshop addresses different modes and manifestations of conflicts, controversies and contestations related to health and wellbeing. Cultural understandings of health and wellbeing, as well as the structures and institutional arrangements associated with them, are important political questions and arenas of struggle in society, both historically and today. Health and wellbeing are also complexly entangled with relationships of power, and are traversed by social inequalities around gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age and ability.

The workshop invites submissions that address specific conflicts, controversies and political mobilisations concerning health, illness and wellbeing. It sets out to map and advance our understanding of the processes of politicization and depoliticization around these issues and the consequences they have. The workshop addresses, for example, the following questions: what kinds of conflicts and controversies can we identify in different contexts, and what kinds of political mobilisations do they give rise to? What kinds of conflicts and controversies may arise among health care professionals, and between professionals and patients? What issues or dimensions of health and wellbeing are being ignored, silenced or depoliticised? What kinds of visions and ideals are promoted and how are they marked by different axes of inequality and (dis)advantage? How are conflicts and controversies articulated in the media, and how are they governed and managed in state policies? What kinds of positions do various actors representing diverse forms of expertise and knowledge take and how are these positions negotiated?

The workshop seeks to facilitate multidisciplinary discussion. We welcome submissions that may relate to but need not be limited to the following themes:

  • Health social movements, patient organisations and health activism
  • Politicization of evidence and expertise
  • Mental health
  • Therapeutic culture and wellness
  • Health inequalities
  • Complementary and alternative medicine
  • Vaccine hesitancy
  • Medicalisation and pharmaceuticalization
  • Conspiracy theories
  • Commodification of health and wellbeing
  • Care and social reproduction
  • Health citizenship

Application process and funding 

Apply for the workshop by filling the online application form:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ShareFormPage.aspx?id=EWg7RqSwKku5MnLEyXDF0pABVZxqrzlMl5Qwka6ur7JUQ0NQOThZTjlRQUZRVVIxTFQ3NU5LUkVUQy4u&sharetoken=n3pT0ZA73zy0VLNE5Rk4

Thirty participants will be accepted in the workshop. Priority will be given to 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. 450 EUR per participant. We encourage the participants to try to avoid any extra costs and book their travel as soon as possible. We also encourage participants to prioritize traveling by train, bus and ferry.

Organizing committee:

Ole Jacob Madsen, University of Oslo, Norway

Suvi Salmenniemi, University of Turku, Finland

Jenny-Ann Brodin Danell, Umeå University, Sweden

Maria Kristiansen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Important dates:

28 February 2023: Deadline for abstracts

15 March 2023: Notification of acceptance

7-8 June 2023: Workshop in Oslo

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