Retrospection and Renewal: Reflections on the Social Studies of Health in Contemporary Life

The study of medicine and health has a long-standing history in the social sciences and humanities, representing a particularly strong subfield in several disciplines. Theories in the social studies of health and medicine have been explored and tinkered with to shape current genealogies that seem to be ever-expanding. In recent years, rapid changes have profoundly affected (bio)medical epistemes, public health discourses, medical and therapeutic technologies, and well-being and illness as subjective experiences embedded in the entanglements of social, political and economic structures. This symposium aims to highlight the contributions of the social studies of health and medicine to contemporary questions, issues and phenomenon, while illuminating the potential of these disciplines, their theories and methodologies for renewal, perennity and transformation. The idea of renewal represents a central question, namely, what does it mean to affect change, whether social, epistemological, methodological or theoretical in the social studies of medicine and health, even as there is no discontinuity ?

This symposium brings people from various perspectives together to cultivate an interdisciplinary dialogue, namely around feminist critiques and the relationship between health and gender; family and childhood; plants, psychedelics and healing; methodological questions and concerns in medical anthropological research; and biomedical knowledge and care. The keynote event will be given by Professor Stephanie Lloyd from the department of anthropology at Laval University.

Schedule

April 24

• 9:30am - Introduction
• 10:00am - Roundtable Researching Health : Ethnographic Methods and Ethics Within/Beyond Anthropology (Daina Stanley, McMaster University ; Clare Walker, Concordia University & Taylor Paterson, University of Ottawa)
• 11:30am - Lunch
• 12:30pm - Panel Genre, santé et épistémologies féministes
  • Épistémologies féministes et transformation de l'activisme féministe dans la santé: le cas de la santé menstruelle (Stéphanie Pache, UQAM)
  • « J’ai toujours pensé que mes blessures étaient imaginaires » : Le diagnostic comme élément essentiel pour les femmes atteintes de fibromyalgie (Julie Godin, uOttawa)
  • Healthy or Feminine? Understanding Women’s Bodies and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (Samadrita Chowdhuri, University of Alberta)
• 2:30pm - Keynote Event Becoming with Environments (Stephanie Lloyd, Université Laval)
• 4:00pm - Inaugural Event

April 25

• 9:30am - Welcome
• 10:00am - Panel Biomedical Ways of Knowing and Caring
  • Do I still have a say in my cancer care?”: A phenomenological study on the impacts of eHealth tools on patient shared decision making (Antoine Przybylak-Brouillard, McGill University)
  • Situating Stress: A Latourian Inquiry into Transcultural Psychiatry in Montreal (Nathan Patrick Ferguson, Concordia University)
• 11:30am - Lunch
• 12:30pm - Panel Enfance, Parentalité et Santé
  • Médicalisation et neurodiversité : quelle cohabitation dans les discours sur l’enfance et les pratiques auprès des enfants ? (Marie-Christine Brault, Université Laval)
  • L'autisme : l'approche de l'anthropologie de la santé pour mieux penser le soutien aux familles (Axelle Jean, UQAM)
  • Les maternités et parentalités vécues à travers le prisme de la douleur chronique : Concilier temporalités handicapées, travail domestique et travail rémunéré (Marieke Hassell-Crépeau, UQAM)
  • Le sens attribué à l'expérience de deuil périnatal des femmes de 18 à 30 ans en situation d'itinérance ou à risque de l'être : Une exploration des expériences, enjeux et ressources (Alexandra Daicu, UQAM)
• 2:30pm - Panel Plants and Healing
  • Psychedelics and Huichol Shamanism: A Dialogue or Separate Realities ? (Hope MacLean, University of Ottawa)
  • THCmania : An Anthropological Exploration of the First Legal Canadian Grow Cup (Nina Barbosa, University of Ottawa)
  • Psychedelics, Healing and Becoming-Plant (Ariel Fuenzalida, Carleton University)