Diaspora and Disease: A Conference
Diaspora and Disease: A Conference
to be held at
The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1 0XG
March 31st-April 1st
Convened By Parvathi Raman (SOAS) and Ian Harper (University of Edinburgh)
The aim of this conference is to bring about discussion between those conducting research in Diaspora Studies and the Anthropology of Public Health and Medicine. The movement of people has long been associated with the spread of disease and infections. In light of this, we are concerned with the role of medical knowledge and practices in relation to Diaspora communities, and how these discourses have contributed to the perception of diaspora populations by host society, and helped shape wider questions of belonging and citizenship. We aim to look at these questions in their historical context, both in their continuities and discontinuities, emphasising the importance of this to an understanding of current practices. Circuits of migration, and connected medical practices are taking new forms, where, on the one hand migrants are still associated with disease and pollution, but migrants are also increasingly staffing the infrastructure of western public health services. At the same time, the west can no longer lay claim to 'superior' biomedical provision. These shifts signal new directions in the relationship between medical discourse and diasporic 'others', giving rise to a contradictory language of migrants being seen as both a threat, and a solution to the 'health of the nation'.
Registration £25/ Concessions £10
For further information and registration forms contact
Dr Parvathi Raman (pr1@soas.ac.uk )
