II Col·loqui Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC)
In the contemporary world,
medicines occupy a central place, both in governmental and international
agendas, and in the daily management of processes of health, disease, care
and prevention.
Government and non-governmental
organizations have identified large population groups of population whose
access to essential medicines is greatly limited due to different economic,
political and cultural motives, among them Intellectual Property clauses and
socioeconomic and gender inequality stand out. There is growing evidence that
the social determinants of health can explain most of the health inequities,
including access and use of medicines. From the sociocultural perspective in
this field it can be pointed out that medicines are objects and symbols at
the same time; such that the entire chain of production, distribution, sale,
prescription, use and consumption of the medicine is influenced by both
dimensions, the material and the symbolic. The combination of all these
questions, invites us to reflect on the dilemmas and contemporary challenges
that involve the use of medicines in the globalised world.
For this reason, the Medical Anthropology
Research Center (MARC) of the University Rovira and Virgili (URV) and
Farmamundi, with the collaboration of the Department of Anthropology,
Philosophy and Social Work (DAFITS) open this call for abstracts for the II
MARC Symposium “Medicines and Culture”. This meeting aims to discuss the
aspects related to medicines and culture, so as to understand contemporary
processes surrounding the difficulties in equitable access to medicines and,
consequently, to health.
We encourage researchers from different
disciplines working on the processes of health/disease/care, user groups,
people working in the pharmacological context, health policy advocates and
related fields to submit communications for dealing with the relationship
between medicines and culture in its broadest sense and contribute to generate
knowledge about the relationships between medicines and human behaviour, and
hence their socio-cultural contexts.
With the purpose of designing a
provisional structure for the Symposium, we propose six major thematic blocks:
1. History of the medicine-culture relationship and the appropriation
of medicines and its hegemonisation from the Hippocratic times until date.
2. The socio-cultural determinants and consequences of access to
medicines, considering the entire cycle of medication (from production to
consumption).
3. Gender relations as a determining and/or distinguishing factor for
access to medicines and, consequently, to health.
4. Activism and Medicines: The role of NGOs, the civil society and
social movements, for the development of the current agenda of access to
essential medicines as a basic human right.
5. The role of international and national legislation and
Intellectual Property: free trade agreements, patents, generic drugs and the
political economy of drugs.
6. Bioethics and pharmacological research: experimentation,
responsible use of medicines, and research protocols with humans and animals.
Some questions of interest for the
Symposium are:
·
How does the normative of Intellectual Property influence the
handling of medicines?
·
Generic medicines: Its appearance on the market, what does it mean
and for whom?
· How can we improve access to medicines? How much of this has to do
with cultural determinants of accessibility?
·
How does gender inequalities condition access to medicines
-considering the entire cycle of the medication– from production to
consumption?
· How do the users organize themselves? What speeches, practices and
counter-hegemonic experiences exist in the use of medicines?
·
What new types of moral sense come into play in the demand for
access to medicines?
The call is open to abstracts for
oral communications, photography samples, audio-visual compositions and
posters. Other proposals regarding topics or delivery form, as well as
workshops will also be positively considered. If the proposal is of your
interest, please write to pharmaandculture@gmail.com[Office5] .
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
Summary
Maximum length: 300 words.
Font: Garamond 12, Paragraph:
1.5. Margins: 2.5
File format: PDF
Languages: Catalan, Spanish,
English, French, Portuguese, German, or Italian
Information to be included: (1) type of
proposal (oral, photographic, audio-visual communication, workshop, other) (2)
title of the communication, (3) names (s) of authors and group of investigation
or organization (if applicable), (4) phone number, (5) e-mail contact (in case
of multiple authors, indicate all addresses) and (6) postal address of
reference.
After the summary, please include a short
curriculum with an overview of institutional affiliation and research interests
and/or activism (if applicable). (max 100 words)
Mode of abstract submission
Abstracts should be sent to
pharmaandculture@gmail.com before April 30, 2016.
Date of response (acceptance of
proposals): May 30, 2016.
Due to limitations of space there
will be a maximum number of papers accepted, however it may be possible to
attend as a listener with certificate of attendance.
The final organization of the
program will depend on applications received and accepted for participation.
As soon as
the Conference is concluded, with a selection of papers presented a publication
will be edited for the collection of e-books of Medical Anthropology of
Publications URV.