“Keep the Promise on HIV/AIDS” March on Washington Set for Opening Day of International AIDS Conference

Thousands Expected to Gather at Washington Monument for Rally & March July 22^nd at 2:00 pm; 1,432 Organizations from 103 Countries and 2,333 Individuals Have Signed On in Support of the “Keep the Promise” Declaration

Musician & Activist Wyclef Jean Will Help Kick Off the March with a Performance, Joined by Speakers Ambassador Andrew Young, Reverend Al Sharpton, Tavis Smiley, Dr. Cornel West and—with a Special Message from South Africa—Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Comedienne Margaret Cho Will Serve as Host

 

CALL FOR PAPERS:____________________________________________

Conference:

*Biographies in Times of Crisis: Exploring Religious Narratives of AIDS in Africa and the African Diaspora*

International Conference, Groningen, the Netherlands 13, 14 and 15 December 2012

Call for papers for a conference hosted by the Religion, Identity and Memory Research Group, Faculty of Religious Studies, University of Groningen & the International Research Network on AIDS and Religion in Africa (IRNARA)

See also: http://www.religion-aids-africa.org/

*Invited Keynote-speakers*:
– Prof. Arthur W. Frank (Dep. of Sociology University of Calgary, Canada)
– Prof. Musa Dube (Dep. of Religious Studies, University of Botswana)
– Prof. Vinh-Kim Nguyen (Dep. of Social and Preventive Medicine,
University of Montreal/ the Max Planck Institute for Social
Anthropology in Halle, Germany
– Prof. Philippe Denis (School of Religion and Theology, University of
KwaZulu-Natal)
– Dr.Rev. C. G. Byamugisha (ANARELA+, Anglican Church Kampala/Queens
Foundation for Ecumenical Education, Birmingham, UK)

*Introduction*

The contemporary history of AIDS in Africa demonstrates how, over the course of a few decades, the lives of people and institutions have been drawn into the social trajectory of the disease. It has not merely reshaped the lives of those directly affected and their families, peers and friends but has also informed changes in certain institutions in African societies. Personal and institutional biographies have been reformulated as the epidemic has taken its course and personal meanings of religion have changed to cope with (the consequences of) HIV/AIDS. In addition, religious institutions have become part of the fight against the pandemic. In the programmes set up for treatment, care and awareness, new ideas concerning the disciplining of personal, social and institutional behaviour have emerged.

The conference invites papers that address the following issues:

1. Understanding AIDS through biographies

How does an analysis of biographies, life histories and self-narratives contribute to a better understanding of the AIDS
epidemic and religious engagement with the disease? How does a biographic approach allow a better understanding of how organizational policies and programmes shape and are shaped by personal biographies? How do (religious) institutions (churches, FBOs, NGOs, leaders, spokespeople) position themselves through narratives and how does this positioning impact on people’s perceptions of and experiences with AIDS? How do the dynamics between personal and institutional biographies impact on one another? How does this highlight the manner in which narrativity can be explored as disciplining or agentive?

2. Continuity and crisis in the rewriting of narratives of the self

How is the suffering and the ruptures that HIV/AIDS entail expressed
in individual and collective biographies? How can the crisis that
HIV/AIDS provokes in life courses and life histories be understood in
the perspective of agency, relations, coping and discipline? How do
personal biographies rewrite subjectivity in the form of
self-narrativity, self-responsibility and decision-making when faced
with crisis? This can include experiences of suffering and the death
of friends and relatives, and the disruption of social and
reproductive relations. How do biographies that suggest taking one’s
life course in one’s own hands relate to or contest socio-religious
involvement with the disease? Do self-narratives provide critical
reflections of one’s past life and future re-orientations that are
associated with HIV/AIDS?

3. Socio-religious biographies of the self and their contestation

How do religio-biographies emerge? And how do religio-biographies of
HIV/AIDS influence HIV/AIDS education, counselling and pastoral
relations between the ‘sender’ and the ‘receiver’? Where do these
religio-biographies stand in relation to other forms of narrativity?
Is there a battle of biographies that indicates choices that persons
and institutions have to make consciously and convincingly in order to
be assured of a particular representation of themselves in Africa’s
public domain?

4. Memory, voice and silence in embodied biographies

What is the role of biography and life history in the way societies
remember in the context of crisis? How is HIV/AIDS embodied in memory?
How do memory narratives contribute to rewriting the lives of those
with HIV/AIDS? How do religious institutions and communities give
meaning to HIV/AIDS through acts of remembering and/or silencing?

5. Diaspora, AIDS and strangerhood

This call for papers invites papers on the subject of religious
narratives on HIV/AIDS in the African diaspora. Papers can relate to
the themes mentioned above but could also address the diasporic
situation specifically. How does the context of the diaspora impact on
the shaping of religio-biographies of HIV/AIDS? What narratives are
developed by (institutions of) receiving countries on the topic of
African migrants and HIV/AIDS and how does this impact on their
self-narratives? What effect does ‘strangerhood’ have on the meanings
given to HIV/AIDS in personal biographies?

Practical Information

The conference will be held at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands on 13, 14 and 15 December 2012. Abstracts (max. 300 words) should be submitted to the convenors for selection by 30 June (send to: aidsbiography@rug.nl). The selected speakers will be notified by 30 June and a conference programme, including the keynote speakers, will be announced in due course. The conference fee is € 40.

Brenda Bartelink
Rijk van Dijk

aidsbiography@rug.nl

Dr. Rijk van Dijk
Senior Researcher
Editor-in-Chief African Diaspora. Journal of Transnational Africa in a
Global World
Chair International Research Network Religion and AIDS in Africa (IRNARA)
http://www.religion-aids-africa.org/
dijkr@ascleiden.nl

 

**************************************************

Call for Papers for an international summer school in medical anthropology, taking place at the Institute of
Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin, from July 22th – July 26th, 2013.

 

Deadline for abstract submission is July 15th, 2012.

The summer school focuses on “Well-being at the Margins: Seeking Health in Stratified Landscapes of Medicine and Healing.” We invite advanced PhD students and junior scholars to submit abstracts, focusing on one (or more) of the themes addressed in the following panels:

1) Structures of inequality

2) Citizenship and belonging

3) Embodiment of exclusion and insecurity

4) Ethics of researching suffering and inequality

The summer school offers the opportunity to discuss ideas and results with renowned senior scholars and advanced students, and to participate in a number of related activities such as a one-day field-trip and an interdisciplinary round-table discussion. We aim at preparing the papers for publication, either in an edited volume or in a peer-reviewed journal.

Confirmed speakers are:

·  Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

·  Vinh-Kim Nguyen (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)

·  David Napier (University College London, UK)

·  Sylvie Fainzang (Cermes3/Inserm, Paris, France)

·  Ian Harper (University of Edinburgh, UK)

·  Miriam Ticktin (New School for Social Research, New York, USA)

For questions and queries, please email the organizers at
fu.berlin.medanthro@gmail.com

******************************************************
Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Developing World Bioethics: Ethics and Treatment Access Activism: Courts, Health Policy and Health Economics

Guest Editors: Maurice Cassier, Marilena Correa

Closing date for submissions: 15 September 2012

This Special Issue of Developing World Bioethics will focus on the
emergence of ethical analyses pertaining to impoverished patients’
access to medical care and to medicines. The main focus of this issue
will be on the fight against HIV/AIDS and the “neglected” diseases of
the last two decades. New ethical understandings have been developed
in different contexts and expressed in governmental health policies,
and through tribunals, public discussion forums, patients association
claims, humanitarian organizations and funds, research programs,
governmental health departments, international health organizations,
etc. In each case, what is at stake are norms such as equity, as well
as equality and justice, which provide an important foundation for
individual and collective forms of activism as well as governmental
actions. The Special Issue of Developing World Bioethics aims at
bringing about a critical discussion of the variegated ethical
arguments for improving access to treatment and medicines, which have
been put forward by different social actors.

The editors welcome early discussion of brief proposals and/or
abstracts by email. Papers can be sent to Maurice Cassier and Marilena
Correa.

Upon submission authors should include full contact details and a few
lines of autobiographical information in a separate electronic file.
We discourage papers of more than 5000 words.

For further submission requirements, format and referencing style, refer to the Author Guidelines
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291471-8847/homepage/ForAuthors.html

Manuscripts should be submitted to Developing World Bioethics online at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/dwb.
Please ensure that you select manuscript type ‘Special Issue’.

Maurice Cassier is a sociologist and economist
Senior researcher at CNRS ; directeur d´etudes EHESS.
CERMES
Site CNRS, 7, rue Guy Môquet.
VILLEJUIF Cedex 94801.
FRANCE

Marilena Corrêa MD, PhD in sociology of health
Full Professor at the Institute of Social Medecine of the State
University of Rio de Janeiro (IMS-UERJ)
Instituto de Medicina Social
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Rua São Francisco Xavier 524, 7 andar, bloco D
Rio de Janeiro RJ zip code 20559.990
BRAZIL

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS:___________________________

 

SAVE THE DATE:

5th National Conference for Physician-Scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities
April 13-14, 2013
San Francisco, CA

In April 2013, MD/PhD graduates and trainees in the social sciences and humanities will gather in San Francisco for our 5th biennial meeting, continuing to build on foundations laid by the 2011 conference in Chicago, the 2009 conference at the University of Pennsylvania, the 2007 conference at the University of Chicago, and the 2005 conference at UCSF.

We hope that you will join us in San Francisco, back where this vibrant and growing community first met 7 years ago!

Additional information and updates about the conference, including registration information and abstract submission, will be posted to our blog. Stay tuned and check back frequently!

http://physicianscholars.blogspot.com/

We welcome your comments and questions at physicianscholars@gmail.com, and look forward to seeing everyone in San Francisco next April!

Best Regards,

Dana Greenfield, Molly Hales & Nadia Gaber

UCSF Program in Medical Anthropology
Conference Organizers

physicianscholars@gmail.com

Two PhD candidates: for 38 hours per week: vacancy number W12-146

The PhD candidates will participate in a five-year comparative research project which will undertake a transnational, multi-sited ethnographic study of moral and political subjectivity in human rights-based HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs (the PhD positions are four year contracts). This project will take a critical approach to the social and political uses of human rights discourse and seeks candidates who are well acquainted with critical inquiries into moral and political discourses and practices. In particular the following questions will be addressed from the perspective of an anthropology of moralities: Are there more distal, non-health related consequences of the therapeutic practices of such programs that inadvertently shape the political and moral subjectivities of participants? If so, are they related to the particular combination of moral discourses (e.g., human rights, personal responsibility, and local) underlying the therapeutic approach? How are any such consequences experienced by participants and how have they altered their everyday social and political interactions in their networks and communities? In addressing these questions one of the PhD candidates will research such programs in South Africa and the other candidate will do research in Indonesia. Applicants should apply for a position focusing on only one of these two countries. A significant part of this project will consist of on-site, long-term ethnographic research.

Tasks

§ Conduct long-term ethnographic research;

§ write a dissertation and other publications;

§ teach in the field of social sciences;

§ participate in the AISSR PhD programme, including attendance of courses;

§ participate in conferences and seminars.

Requirements

We are looking for candidates with the following credentials:

§ Completed Master’s degree in Anthropology or related discipline; candidates with a Master’s degree in Philosophy, who have strong and demonstrable social scientific interests, are also encouraged to apply;

§ familiarity with qualitative research methods;

§ research experience and language competency suitable to either South Africa or Indonesia depending on research site will be considered an advantage.

Further information

More information regarding the research project, can be obtained from the principal researcher, Dr Jarrett Zigon; e-mail j.zigon@uva.nl; homepage: http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.zigon/

Appointment

The full-time appointment will be for a period of four years (12 months plus a further 36 months after a positive evaluation), starting as soon as possible.

The gross monthly salary will be €2,042 in the first year and €2,612 in the fourth year in the case of a full-time position (38 hrs / week). Secondary benefits at Dutch universities are attractive and include 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end of year bonus.

Job application

Applications must include:

§ A CV;

§ A motivation letter;

§ Two letters of recommendation;

§ A research plan of maximum 2,000 words.

§

All correspondence should be in English. Applications must be sent by e-mail to application-soca-fmg@uva.nl before 15 August 2012. E-mailed applications should include the text: “PhD candidates research project Rights, Responsibilities, and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic” in the subject line and should contain the documents as a single attached pdf.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS:_________________________________

We are seeking nominations for our AARG distinguished service award. The award will be presented at the American Anthropological Association meeting in November. Please consider nominating someone you think is deserving of this distinguished award. To nominate someone please send your recommendation to Doug Goldsmith at doug_goldsmith@hotmail.com as soon as possible.

Following is a description of the award along with a list of past recipients:

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD

The AARG Distinguished Service Award is given to a living anthropologist in recognition of her or his exceptionally meritorious contributions to the improvement of the health of people infected with or at risk of infection with HIV. The nominee must be an anthropologist and AAA member. Criteria for selection include the impact of the service work and the duration of the service work. The degree to which the service work promotes anthropology as a field concerned with improving the quality of human life is considered, as is the nominee’s expected further contribution in the area of service, but neither promotion of anthropology nor the intent to remain in service are essential qualifications. Previous winners of the AARG Distinguished Service Award will not be eligible for consideration.

Nominations must consist of a letter providing an account (no longer than 300 words) of the specific service(s) performed by the nominee, including the time frame and outcomes of his or her efforts. This statement should make the case for why the nominee should be recognized for their significant service contribution. The statement must begin with the nominee’s name, affiliation, and full current contact information. A copy of the nominee’s curriculum vitae (CV) should be attached. Please send nominations to the chair of the Service Award Committee, Doug Goldsmith.

Previous recipients of the AARG Distinguished Service Award are: