Two-day symposium ‘Concerning Relations: Sociologies of Conduct, Care and Affect’ 28-29 Nov. 2014

We are pleased to announce a two-day symposium ‘Concerning Relations: Sociologies of Conduct, Care and Affect’, 28/29 Nov. 2014, University of Exeter. The aim of this exciting international workshop is to bring together leading researchers, practitioners and scholars from care studies, sociology of health and illness, science and technology studies, humanities and philosophy to rethink care. We also plan to publish the results of the workshop.

This interdisciplinary symposium, funded by Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness (FSHI) and Exeter University, aims to interrogate the implications of shifting the focus of health care away from ‘delivery’ towards care as an ongoing everyday accomplishment. The situatedness of care relations and how situated care relations are practiced and experienced are vital to understanding the impacts care has upon patients, families and healthcare staff. This shift represents a contrasting view on care, from one that is predicated upon a discourse of absence (of care) or lack (of dignity) to the affective interactional relations between social actors. Such shifts of focus are of prime concern as care may be viewed less as a commodity which can be lost, saved, traded or withheld, but as a relation that is deeply embedded within institutional contexts, of individuals and the social worlds they inhabit.

This symposium examines spaces of collisions, elisions or alignments of social worlds, within which the affective dimension of social life in healthcare may be fruitfully examined. Drawing upon relational concerns as a distinct and distinctive mode of sociological inquiry, the symposium seeks to develop an understanding of care and its consequences that help us get beyond the economics of care as a commodified and managed form of engagement with the ‘other’. Making this shift has huge potential for addressing long-standing, global concerns around ‘cultures of poor care’ or ‘care as absence’, the seemingly intractable problems that are not readily amenable to a quick or even a slow fix.

The symposium examines how the fix, the cure, remains an issue of perspective. Central questions include:

• What if the ‘problem’ of caring in health care settings was viewed differently, how would the issues be seen through an affective, situated relational perspective, how would an affective orientation resolve or heighten long standing and seemingly intractable problems of institutional care?
• Is the demand for a cure (the fix) a manifestation of a broader political economy at work, is it a question of the mundane interaction order where contemporary modes of conduct reinforces distance, or is the organisational ‘cure’ simply a manifestation of organisational disease?
• Can materials, economies, institutional practices and modes of accounting contribute to poor clinical and managerial conduct and do such devices legitimate a focus away from the patient?

Rather than provide a critique with no visible solution, or provide a simplification of institutional mores, a more cogent question may be what or who is now being cared for. Once such questions of central importance to a relational sociology have been attended to, the case for re-imagining the organization of care as a situated accomplishment can be made, a case based upon sound sociological reasoning. This symposium challenges what it means to care.

The organizers would appreciate general information about your possible participation before 15.07.2014. Please reply to: m.schillmeier AT exeter.ac.uk

Kind regards

Michael Schillmeier (Exeter)
Joanna Latimer (Cardiff)
Paul White (Swansea)
Alexandra Hillman (Cardiff)
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Professor Michael Schillmeier
Schumpeter Fellow / VolkswagenStiftung
Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology
Centre for the Studies of Life Sciences
Byrne House
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4PJ

New Nuevo Neu
Eventful Bodies: The Cosmopolitics of Illness. Ashgate (forthcoming)

http://www.nanomedizin.soziologie.uni-muenchen.de

4th International Symposium on Pervasive Computing Paradigms for Mental Health

May 8 - 9, 2014 - Tokyo, Japan
NEWS: The paper submission deadline has been extended to February 22, 2014

You are warmly invited to participate in the 4th MindCare 2014 symposium which is focused on the use of technologies in favor of maintaining and improving mental wellbeing. It will be hosted at the University of Tokyo. The symposium will bring together top researchers and practitioners from various technological, medical and psychological disciplines.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
MindCare 2014 will feature two state-of-the-art keynote speeches given by:

• Neema Moraveji - Director of Calming Technology Lab, Stanford University, USA
• Manabu Honda - Director of the Department of Functional Brain Research, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan

The accepted papers will be published in Springer's LNICST series and will appear in the SpringerLink - one of the largest digital online libraries which covers a myriad of scientific disciplines. In addition, the accepted papers will be available in EU digital library (EUDL) and indexed in Scopus and EI as well as submitted for indexing in ISI Proceedings. Selected papers will be given a possibility to be extended for a journal publication.

Recent Advances in Research on Housing Transitions and the Life Course - a one-day symposium

Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society Social Statistics section.
DATE: Tuesday 10 December 2013
TIME: 10am-5pm (followed by a drinks reception)
LOCATION: Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London EC1Y 8LX

We are pleased to announce a one-day symposium on recent developments in research on housing transitions through the life course.  The event will feature presentations from leading international demographers, geographers and economists on different aspects of housing careers. Topics include:

• the interrelationship between housing and fertility: childbearing patterns by housing conditions and housing changes after the birth of a child
• wage, employment and house-price effects on migration
• intergenerational transmission of home ownership and neighbourhood poverty
• residential mobility, neighbourhood poverty dynamics and neighbourhood choice among families

The symposium is sponsored by the ESRC-funded project “Interrelationships between housing transitions and fertility” (see http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmm/research/housing for further details). 

SPEAKERS:
William A.V. Clark (University of California, Los Angeles) Clara Mulder (University of Groningen), Heather Joshi (Institute of Education) Hill Kulu (University of Liverpool) David Manley (University of Bristol) Birgitta Rabe (University of Essex) Elizabeth Washbrook (University of Bristol)

A programme and abstracts are at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmm/research/housing/symposium/index.html

REGISTRATION AND QUERIES: All are welcome and attendance is free.  Refreshments will be provided, including lunch and a drinks reception.  However, advance registration is essential.  Please complete the online registration form at http://www.cmm.bris.ac.uk/clients/booking/91/ to reserve your place.

[ I mentioned to the organisers about the ongoing transitions I have posted about before; that of older adults moving house (home) often in response to a bereavement to be nearer other family members. This is not the symposium's focus, but remains a question in terms of the potential impact on the individuals concerned and health and social services. pj ]

Call for papers: the science and practice of people-centred health systems

Cover: Health Policy and Planning

The journal Health Policy and Planning and the organizers of the Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research [ next in 2014 ] are pleased to issue a call for papers for a special supplement on the theme of "The science and practice of people-centred health systems". The theme for the call is also the theme of the Symposium. Full text of the call.

People-centred health systems are founded on pro-people philosophies of social justice and equity, recognize the role of social exclusion and inequities as determinants of poor health, and can also actively work to address them. They consider the health needs and preferences of individuals, families and communities, and create the channels through which these can be articulated and realized. They also recognize and actively progress people’s rights to participate in and determine how health systems are organized, resources are allocated, and services are delivered.

The idea of people-centred health systems also encompasses the rights and needs of people who work in and for the health system in various roles - as carers, health workers, advocates, administrators, planners and researchers. It also recognizes that important decisions that determine health system performance at all levels are made by specific people (individuals and groups in the public and private sectors) - highlighting the importance of collecttive duties toward the advancement of health, and of identifying responsibility and ensuring accountability for health system outcomes. 

Finally, the concept of people-centred health systems also acknowledges that health systems operate in broader social, political and economic contexts that are of human creation, and the need to respond to all factors that affect health rather than focusing only on biomedically driven solutions.

Full manuscripts on the theme of “the science and practice of people centred health systems” should be submitted to Health Policy and Planning by 18 November 2013 through the submission link on the journal website (http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/).  Original research articles as well as review papers are invited. Submissions that have a first-author who is a resident in a low and middle-income country are particularly encouraged.  Accepted papers will be published as a special journal supplement prior to the Symposium, which will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, 30 September - 3 October, 2014. 

The full text of the call contains suggested topics, details of the selection process and author information.

For further queries, contact Kabir Sheikh (kabir.sheikh AT phfi.org) or Michael Kent Ranson (ransonm AT who.int).

c/o HIFA2015

Inaugural Symposium on Person-centredness in the Curriculum May 2nd - 3rd

Dates
Thursday 2 May and Friday 3 May 2013
(starting at lunch time on 2 May with a full day on 3 May)

Venue
Loughview Suite, Jordanstown campus, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland

The School of Nursing at Ulster has a strong tradition of national and international leadership in the field of person-centred practice. The Institute of Nursing and Health Research at Ulster incorporates the Person-centred Practice Research Centre directed by Professor Brendan McCormack. Against this backdrop the School has been developing a programme of work with a focus on person-centredness in nursing education. It is our contention that in order to achieve maximum effect in practice, person-centredness should be embedded within and across all programmes of education for health care professionals.

This year the School of Nursing at Ulster will host its Inaugural International Symposium on Person-Centredness in Nursing Education. The one and a half day symposium will include presentations and workshops that will appeal to those involved in nursing education in academic and practice settings.

Symposium themes 
The three key themes of the symposium are:

• To explore ways of infusing a culture of person-centredness through effective, contemporary higher education
• To share innovative approaches to the facilitation of person-centredness in practice learning
• To reflect upon how the experiences of teaching teams and service users and to consider how these can shape educational approaches and teaching strategies

Target audience
The symposium will be of interest to colleagues who have an interest in promoting person-centred practice through education in practice or academic settings.

Fee
£70 (includes car parking, lunch and refreshments on both days)

To reserve a place or for further information please contact:
Julie Cummins at the Institute of Nursing and Health Research
Email: j.cummins1 AT ulster.ac.uk Telephone: +44 (0) 28 7012 4094
Web: www.science.ulster.ac.uk/nursing/international-symposium/

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I plan to attend this event on a topic central to h2cm.