At present, it seems that we are surrounded by an escalating series of crises, in which a new crisis begins before the last one is resolved. The global COVID-19 crisis unfolded in the midst of the climate change crisis, and has since been complicated by new military, economic, and political crises. The last decade has seen crises of war on all continents, followed by unprecedented refugee and displacement crises. Contrary to what is often assumed, crises are not rare, unexpected, or unknowable. Crises also arise on an individual level – a diagnosis of a life-threatening condition is a personal crisis, as well as a relational crisis. Neither are crises new to health and medicine. In the Hippocratic corpus, crises were seen as customary but crucial events in the disease process – determining the outcome in the form of recovery or death. Attending to crises has always involved value judgements. Indeed, the Greek root from which the word derives: κρίνειν (krinein) is a verb whose active form means “to choose, to decide a dispute, to discern, to judge.”
Pandemic crises, crises of war, or crises within health systems have been ongoing throughout history. Yet not all forms of suffering are equally visible as crises, and declarations of crises are likely to have vastly different effects on those minoritized, racialized, and economically marginalized compared to those positioned at the mainstream of any given health system. Declaring crisis is a tool of power and control, giving a specific temporal shape to a set of events. That does not mean that there is no such thing as urgency, disruption, or acceleration, but naming it a crisis, is as much a question of bringing a situation about as responding to it. Crises, whether in systems, in societies or in the individual suffering of patients, are moments of decisive change, and which invite us to reassess the different pasts of suffering and healing that we study. An examination of past crises can also help us reconsider the presents that we are in and the futures we envision.
We invite submissions on any topic in the history of medicine and health broadly conceived, and welcome a range of disciplinary approaches, time periods and geographical contexts. We especially encourage proposals that address aspects of the conference theme. Possible topics include but are not limited to
The concept of crisis in early modern medicine, from Corpus Hippocraticum onwards conceived as a decisive moment in the disease process as well as the diagnostic process
Crises and their temporal aspects– urgency, acceleration, delay, duration, synchronization etc.
Health and medicine in times of war (nurses and physicians during war time, but also people’s lives during these humanitarian crises, civilian and refugee health, etc.) and their afterlives (trauma, memories, scientific innovations)
Humanitarian emergencies
Pandemic and epidemic crises (lives lived during these crises, medical knowledge construction, measures taken, healing attempts) – and the afterlives of such crises
Responses in health provision as “crisis services” (e.g., mental health services after a crisis)
Economic crises and their wider consequences for health and medicine
Environmental crises, climate crises, biodiversity crises and their relationship to health and healthcare and/or medical knowledge over time
Crises in health as psychological, existential and relational events
Crisis in trust (in research, in health systems, patient-physician relationships)
Crises and faith
Communication of crises
Crisis of (post)modern medicine (overdiagnosis, overtreatment, but also historiographical and critical discussion of the thesis of (bio)medicalization (Illich, Szasz, Foucault, Clarke &co)
Moral crises: integrity, objectivity and conflicts of interest in professional medicine
Managing crisis: training, simulation and inter-professional collaboration
High risk environments and historical planning for disaster
Crises in (post)colonial medicine
Shortages and waiting lists in healthcare over time
Vulnerable populations and their (re)appearance at moments of crisis
Rights, resilience and insuring against healthcare disasters
Sensing disaster: sensory history and medical crises
Collecting and documenting health crises; issues related to oral history and material culture collecting, including ethical questions
Crises as a subject/an example in the teaching of medical history or in museum exhibitions
Crises as an opportunity for community organizing and activism
Instructions
Individual and panel submissions must be submitted by 30 January 2023 and should include an abstract (of no more than 250 words), with title, your name and institutional affiliation, and five key words. Panel submissions should ideally include three papers (each with 250-word abstract, keywords and institutional affiliation), a chair and an introductory 100-word description. If you wish to organize a roundtable (a panel discussion of 45 minutes on a specific theme), please include the names of all participants and a short abstract (maximum 500 words). We also invite suggestions to a mixed media session (could include a poster from a research or student project, short presentations of outreach activities (e.g., game, exhibit), digitization or medical heritage projects or activist interventions. Suggestions for mixed media session should contain a 100-word description of the project and institutional affiliation. Submissions will open from December 1st. Questions? They can be adressed to eahmh23@helsam.uio.