CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
Medical Anthropology in Europe: Shaping the Field
RAI Conference on 1-2 July 2010 at the University of Oxford,
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and St. Antony’s College
Medical anthropology has just as long a history in Europe as in North America. However,
European medical anthropologists are often unknown in Britain. One reason is that they often do not write in English or only sporadically. Perhaps, precisely due to the different languages, different medical anthropological perspectives have had time to gain some maturity and develop into sometimes quite distinctive schools. After the first RAI conference on “Medical Anthropology in Britain Today” in September 2007, this second
RAI conference will invigorate our own medical anthropological teaching and research by getting to know and interacting with mostly, but not exclusively, European colleagues.
Thursday, 1 st July, 12 pm onwards: registration
1.30 pm Welcome by Hilary Callan, Director of the RAI
1.45 pm Welcome by Dr. Melissa Parker, Chair of the RAI Medical Anthropology
Committee (Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, and Director of the Centre for
Research in International Medical Anthropology, Brunel University)
Four speakers who shaped the field will discuss as common theme how they experienced the emergence of this field that we today may call medical anthropology, what was an issue of concern at the time, what were themes of research that mattered, who chiselled out a pathway, how and when, who were the other players in related fields, what were the major challenges they faced?
Dr. Gilbert Lewis (Department of Social Anthropology, St. John's College, University of
Cambridge): “Opening expectations: perspectives on medical anthropology before and after practice in the field”
Prof. Tullio Seppilli (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts and
Philosophy, University of Perugia): “Itineraries and spcificities of Italian medical anthropology”
Prof. Sjaak van der Geest (Medical Anthropology, University of Amsterdam): “Xenophilia and the rise of medical anthropology in the Netherlands”
Prof. Armin Prinz & Dr. Ruth Kutalek (Ethnomedicine Unit, School of Public Health,
Medical University of Vienna): “The Development of Ethnomedicine / Medical
Anthropology in Germany and Austria”
Four Round Table Panelists of the “second generation” will comment on further developments within their fields:
Prof. Anne-Lise Middlethon (Section for Medical Anthropology and Medical History,
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo);
Prof. Hansjoerg Dilger (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universitaet,
Berlin);
Dr. Sylvie Fainzang (Anthropology, National Institute of Health, Paris);
Dr. Helen Lambert (Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol)

Friday 2 July 2010, 9 am – 6.30 pm
The second day is devoted to three panels on current issues within medical anthropology, each of which will be introduced by a keynote speaker and complemented by speakers whose papers will be recruited through a competitive call for papers.
Panel one: Medical anthropology and the psychological sciences
Keynote speaker: Prof. Rene Devisch (Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of Leuven): “Rethinking the intercultural and interhuman legitimacy of endogenous medical anthropology and clinical psychoanalytical reflexivity”
Panel two: Controlling chronic illness: cross-cultural perspectives
Keynote speaker: Prof. Susan Whyte (Department of Anthropology, University of
Copenhagen): “Time, sociality and control in lives with long-term illness”
Panel three: Biopolitics and hegemony in medical anthropology
Keynote speaker: Dr. Giovanni Pizza (Sezione Antropologica, Dipartimento Uomo &
Territorio, University of Per ugia): “Second nature: on Gramsci's anthropology”
Plenary discussion, chaired by PD Dr. Brigit Obrist (Associate Professor,
Ethnologisches Seminar, Universitaet Basel), Chair of the EASA medical anthropology network; panellists will include Prof. Josep Comelles (Professor, Department of
Anthropology, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarrgona), and others.
Registration: £30.- for salaried staff, £15.- for student
CALL FOR PAPERS
The RAI medical anthropology committee invites proposals for contributions to one of the three above panels by at the latest 15 th January 2010. The call for papers is open to anyone who has an academic affiliation and feels they can contribute to the above themes. The selection panel (the chair of the committee, the organizer of the conference and two other committee members) will consider scholarly quality and originality, as well as the fit of the paper into the panel and the conference overall. We are hoping to identify between three and six speakers per panel. Please send the title, a 500-word abstract and a postal address, indicating your affiliation, in an email to: Amanda.Vinson@therai.org.uk For any other queries, please contact: elisabeth.hsu@anthro.ox.ac.uk
Saturday, 3 July 2010
A oneday conference on “Shaping our Science Medical Anthropology,
Interdisciplinarity and Public Space”, organized by the EASA Medical
Anthropology Network Student Officers, invites papers by graduate students.
Exact topic yet to be announced. For further information, please contact claire@beaudevin.net
and susann.huschke@gmail.com

Student Workshop of the Medical Anthropology Student Network of the EASA
(European Association of Social Anthropologists) and the Oxford University
Anthropological Society, 3 July 2010
As medical anthropologists, we have carved a distinct niche in the social sciences. However, the boundaries of this niche are rather malleable in the academic and non-academic worlds. Medical anthropology incorporates scholarship spanning from history to physiology, while practicing within a wide range of situations from academic research to implementing health care policies.
We seek to explore the interdisciplinary nature of medical anthropology from both perspectives of theory and practice.

To what extent does medical anthropology cross academic disciplines?

If we should create boundaries, where should these lines be drawn?

What is the academic identity of a medical anthropologist?

Questions similar to these can be raised when the anthropologist shifts to practice.

What is the role of medical anthropologist in society?

How, if desired, can medical anthropologists contribute to a bettering world?
We invite students of medical anthropology and young scholars to contribute to the workshop.
Please contact the student representatives of the Medical Anthropology Student
Network of the EASA. Claire Beaudevin: beaudevin@gmail.co
and Susann
Huschke: susann.huschke@gmail.com