Health In Transition Annual Conference on Health and Healthcare in the Post-Socialist World

Events at the 2012 Conference

Our new Bucharest Events page outlines some of the things that you can look forward to at the 2012 Health in Transition Conference in Bucharest and the weekend following.

Prof. Erin Koch joins Health in Transition as the 2012 keynote speaker!

Prof. Erin Koch is a distinguished medical anthropologist. She earned her Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research in New York City, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky. Her research has focused on numerous topics relating to global health and infectious disease in the former Soviet Union. Her recent publications have explored how and why laboratory technicians cultivate social relationships with microbes to diagnose and typify tuberculosis, investigated informal networks for trading tuberculosis tainted sputum and bodily fluids among prisoners in the Republic of Georgia, and considered the moral claims made by global health and humanitarian interventions targeting persons displaced by war and civil conflict in the former Soviet Union.

In 2011, Dr. Koch was awarded the Norma L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize from Vanderbilt University Press for the best project in the area of medicine and the University of Kentucky Alumni Association Great Teacher Award. We are eagerly awaiting the publication of most recent book, entitled Free Market Tuberculosis: Managing Epidemics in Postsocialist Georgia, which is currently in press at Vanderbilt University Press.

The Health in Transition organizers are delighted to welcome Dr. Koch to Bucharest to partake in our conference proceedings.

About the Conference

The 2nd Annual Health in Transition Conference, Ethnographies of Biomedicine in Post-Socialist Europe, will take place on 7-8 June 2012 at the Romanian Academy of Sciences, Bucharest, Romania.

The first Health in Transition Conference took place on 10-11 June 2011 at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Subtitled (Bio)Medicine as Culture in Post-Socialist Europe, the 2011 conference gathered around 30 researchers working from an anthropological perspective on health and healthcare in the post-socialist world. The keynote address was offered by Adriana Petryna, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA (see 2011 Programme).

This year’s conference aims to continue last year’s fruitful experience and thus hopes to inaugurate an annual series of events on the topic of Health in Transition. Our organizational team has secured the kind support of the „Francisc I. Rainer” Institute of Anthropology, which is part of the Romanian Academy of Sciences. The conference will take place on 7-8 June 2012, at The Library of the Romanian Academy, situated on the historical boulevard of Calea Victoriei in central Bucharest.

Given Romania’s recent history of protest over healthcare reform, the location of this year’s conference in Bucharest is significant and timely. We therefore invite papers that seek to explore the key topics of this conference (see the Call for Papers), hoping to replicate last year’s informal and intellectually stimulating exchange. The deadline for abstracts (300 to 400 words) is 20 February 2012. Work in progress is welcome and offers to chair or discuss panels will be warmly received. Please send abstracts and further enquiries to health.in.transition@gmail.com.