Theorising contestation of health and wellbeing: State of the art and how to move forward?
20-21 January 2022, University of Turku, Finland
The workshop seeks to bring together scholars from Nordic countries to advance theoretical understanding concerning the contestation of expertise, evidence and authority in health and wellbeing. In recent years, medical knowledge and expertise have been challenged from a number of fronts. Practices such as vaccine hesitancy, diets that challenge nutrition recommendations, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and New Age spiritualities articulate critique and distrust in health authorities. These practices commonly stand in conflicted relationship to biomedical notions of health and wellbeing and challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge. Debate revolves around what counts as evidence and expertise and how such definitions are recognized and evaluated. Experience-based knowledge is frequently pitted against scientific, particularly biomedical knowledge, and the privileged position of evidence-based medicine is questioned by promoting alternative conceptions of evidence and knowledge production.
The workshop will be devoted to discussing different ways of theorizing these controversies around notions of health and wellbeing. It will address, for example, different understandings of expertise and evidence as well as the political and ethical questions related to them. It will identify the central theoretical frameworks in different disciplines and assess their explanatory power as well as locate questions that have remained under-theorized. It also aims at animating the theoretical imagination of the participants and encourages novel ways of theorizing the phenomenon through interdisciplinary dialogue.
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). The next workshop will be devoted to methodological and epistemological questions, to be held at the Umeå University in 2022, and the final workshop delves into the politics of health and wellbeing, hosted by the University of Oslo in 2023.
Keynote speakers
Jaana Parviainen, University of Tampere
Ayo Wahlberg, University of Copenhagen
Application process and funding
Apply for the workshop by filling the online application form here:
https://link.webropolsurveys.com/S/EAF1E690C0A3BEA9
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.
Important dates
- 30 September 2021: Deadline for applications
- 15 October 2021: Notification of acceptance
- 20-21 January 2022: Workshop
For more information, please contact Suvi Salmenniemi: suvi.salmenniemi [at] utu.fi