‘Classification’, ‘Identity’ and ‘The Body’

Description

Conveners:

• Bonnie Evans (HPS)
• Julia Moses (History)
• Sian Pooley (History)

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Advisors

• John Forrester (HPS)
• Simon Szreter (History)

This interdisciplinary symposium brought together researchers working on diverse aspects of health and welfare. The one-day workshop organised by the Health and Welfare Research Group was designed to showcase on-going research by postgraduate and early research fellows in Cambridge. It attempted to promote academic exchange and to encourage future collaboration.

The Health and Welfare Research Group is a graduate-faculty research group at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). From an interdisciplinary perspective, the group explores the malleable and sometimes recursive nature of knowledge about health, disease, and society.

The symposium aimed to use this comparative approach to focus on the construction and conceptualisation of human and social well-being in diverse historical periods and geographical areas. Discussion of the impact of these ideas on the practice of healthcare and the implementation of welfare policy was particularly encouraged. 

The symposium focused on three themes – 'Classification', 'Identity' and 'The Body'. These strands have been the focus of the seminar programme during the academic year 2007-8, which has encouraged interchange between researchers not just from arts, humanities and social science faculties, but also from scientific and medical backgrounds. A keynote lecture by Professor Joanna Bourke (Birkbeck, University of London) drew these themes together at the workshop.

 

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Part of the  Health and Welfare Research Group