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P129


Reflecting on the epistemological effect of doing medical anthropology [Medical Anthropology Young Scholars Network (MAYS)] 
Convenors:
Matteo Valoncini (Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna)
Xu Liu (Goldsmiths, University of London)
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Formats:
Panel
Mode:
Face-to-face
:
Facultat de Geografia i Història 313
Sessions:
Thursday 25 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid

Short Abstract:

While medical anthropology demonstrates the connectivity of interdisciplinary research, its epistemological approach needs further reflections. We welcome papers reflecting on the challenges of medical anthropology’s role in public engagement and transforming disciplinary boundaries.

Long Abstract:

In these changing times, medical anthropology increasingly finds itself as a pivot point for multi/interdisciplinary projects, posing epistemological, methodological, and ethical questions. Therefore, medical anthropologists always engage with practices of health professionals and/or institutions, building up a connected epistemological realm in various contexts. However, sometimes the engaging approach to the knowledge production of health is seen as a simple add-on rather than the reshaping of epistemological framework in biomedical and health research. Especially, within the public sphere, knowledge produced with qualitative research on biomedical topics sometimes becomes secondary, while the biomedical expertise of science and technology, the persuasion of big data, and even the performative manipulation of discourses remain unchallenged. Thus, we find the following questions increasingly urgent: what knowledge do we produce in relation to healthcare and biomedicine? What discourse do we engage and with whom? Are qualitative approaches immersed within health professional practices, or are they merely the endorser of ethical insights? We wish to put our inquiry into the positioning of medical anthropology, situated at the intersection of perceiving and interrogating the expanding development of health and medical sciences. Meanwhile, we aim to critically approach medical anthropology’s epistemological effect, considering its stance towards the engagements with biomedicine and healthcare. We welcome contributions drawing on empirical cases and conceptual, epistemological inquiries, which could facilitate the reflections on medical anthropology’s, or the qualitative social studies’ role in bridging the social construction and the scientific knowledge production of health and medicine.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Thursday 25 July, 2024, -
Session 2 Thursday 25 July, 2024, -