Dear colleagues,
Just a little reminder, the deadline for submission for the workshop and SI
"Theorizing through the Mundane" is approaching. For more details see below.
We are looking forward receiving your submissions!
Anna Mann, Lisa Linden and Sonja Jerak-Zuiderent
Theorizing through the mundane: storying transformations in healthcare
Call for contributions to workshop and special issue
As a ‘big story’ concern, transformations in healthcare abound:
digitalization and the introduction of AI, major demographic
transformations, antimicrobial resistances, soaring healthcare staff
shortages, the emergence of transgender care, the ‘crisis’ of maternity and
neonatal care, and ever increasing health inequalities are just a few of
them. This workshop and special issue respond to such ‘big story’ concerns
in healthcare by theorizing through ‘the mundane’.
STS has a long tradition – with different beginnings – of attending to and
theorizing through ‘the mundane’. Think about for example the mundaneness of
infrastructural work (Bowker and Star 1999), the fleetingly subtle
‘here-and-now’ (Verran 1999), the everydayness of marginalizing ‘invisible
work’ (Star/Strauss 1989) and Latour’s doorstopper (Johnson/Latour 1988).
More recently, it has been central to ‘care studies’ and ‘maintenance and
repair studies’ marked through an attention to ‘daily life matters’ and
‘tinkering’ (Mol et al. 2010), ‘exnovation’ (Mesman 2008), ‘everyday ethics’
(Pols 2023), the easily devalued as ethico-political commitment (Puig de la
Bellacasa 2011), and overlooked situations that take place in interstices of
routine and breakdown (Denis et al. 2015).
In this workshop and special issue, we are drawing upon and extending these
rich STS accounts on ‘the mundane’ to empirically investigate, think about
and experiment with how STS scholars can relate to and intervene in
‘transformations’ in healthcare. After, or in addition to, the analytical
sensitivities and concerns that have been developed in the care debate
(Lindén and Lydahl 2021; Mol, Moser, Pols 2021; Martin, Myers, Viseu 2015;
Puig de la Bellacasa 2011) and the field of valuation studies (Dussauge,
Helgesson, Lee 2015), which have dominated research on healthcare in STS
over the past decade, the special issue seeks to – empirically,
analytically, and politically – take the next step. ‘Theorising through the
mundane’ offers a version of STS that stays responsive to the ways we are
living, dying and caring for bodies and diseases, and their transformations,
in the first half of
the 21st century; it offers an STS that transforms with and through these
ways now, here, and in the future.
The workshop and special issue welcomes papers with an empirical focus on
healthcare in the large sense. The contributions will explore questions such
as:
• What counts as ‘mundane’ in particular situations, sites, practices of
healthcare?
• How does an attention to ‘the mundane’ allow us to transform ‘big stories’
about current transformations in healthcare?
• How does ‘the mundane’ allow us to attend to modes of living and dying
well?
• How to stay attentive to asymmetrical configurations and the non-innocence
of ‘the mundane’?
• How does the lens of the mundane transform and extend STS theorizing?
The workshop will take place from the 4th to the 6th June 2025 at the
Department of Sociology, University of Zurich. Participants need to submit a
paper draft beforehand, which will be discussed during the workshop. On the
third day, we will engage in alternative formats (walking, writing, etc.) to
think through the mundane. The special issue will be based on the workshop
and submitted to a major STS journal (currently envisaged S&TS).
If this speaks to you and you are interested in submitting a contribution to
the workshop and special issue or only to the special issue, please send an
abstract of no more than 250 words before the 1st December 2024 to:
theorising_through_the_mundane@etik.com If you have further questions, do
not hesitate to contact us. We are looking forward to receiving your
contribution.
Timeline:
2024 December 1: Open call for contributions closes
2024 December 31: Decisions of editors on who will participate in workshop
and/or SI & communication of decision to applicants
2025 Beginning May: Submission of paper draft for workshop
2025 June 4-6: Workshop in Zurich (day 1 & 2 for discussion of paper
drafts, day 3 with alternative formats for thinking through the mundane)
2025 September 30: Submission paper to a major STS journal (currently
envisaged: S&TS)
_______________________________________________
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