Health and Welfare [2006-2011]

Conveners

Conveners

2010-11
Erica Borgstrom (Institute of Public Health)
Christopher Bunn (Institute of Metabolic)
Neil Singh (School of Clinical Medicine) 
Julie Walsh (History and Philosophy of Science)
Rebecca Whyte (History)

2009-10
Richard Barnett (History and Philosophy of Science)
Megan Clinch (General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit)
Rachel Hughes (Cambridge Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Group)
Neil Singh (School of Clinical Medicine) 
Julie Walsh (History and Philosophy of Science)
Rebecca Whyte (History)

2008-09
Richard Barnett  (HPS)
Simon Cohn       (General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit)
Bonnie Evans    (HPS)
Rachel Parry     (Learning Disabilities Research Group)
Sian Pooley       (History)
Nick Whitfield    (HPS)

2007-08
N/I

2006-07
N/I

Faculty Advisors 

John Forrester (History and Philosophy of Science)
Simon Szreter (History)

Themes

Themes  2010-2011 Health Behaviours, Therapy, & Intervention

 Today we can’t escape the fact that today many of our most severe health problems are caused, in part, by the wrong personal choices. Obesity, binge-drinking, smoking and drug addiction are putting millions of lives at risk and costing our health services billions a year. So getting to grips with them requires an altogether different approach to the one we’ve seen before. We need to promote more responsible behaviour and encourage people to make the right choices about what they eat, drink and do in their leisure time. (David Cameron, foreword, A Healthier Nation, Policy Green Paper No.12, Conservative Party 2010.)

If daily headlines and political speeches are anything to go by, behaviour is a major health concern of our times. But what is it? And why and how is medicine looking to the social sciences and humanities for models to explain and change them? The first term’s sessions aim to map and comment on the ways in which notions of behaviour have developed. 

In the following two terms, under the rubric of Therapy and Intervention, we will consider historical and contemporary investments in health interventions and behavioural therapies and explore their pragmatic and ideological coordinates.  We will engage with the literature of therapy criticism and ask, for example, whether political modes of citizenship have been recast as modes of ‘patient-hood’, or whether it makes sense to regard ‘therapy’ as an opiate of the masses? 

Michaelmas Term 2010: Health Behaviours
Lent Term 2011: Therapy Culture & Therapy Criticism
Easter Term 2011: Intervention

Theme 2009-10 Bodily Excess

Within the thematic framework of 'Bodily Excess', this term's sessions will explore some of the difficulties of conceptualising the health and welfare of the embodied self from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The 'body' in question not only pertains to both the individual and the social body, but also to the bodies of knowledge within which the problem of corporeal identities are discursively situated and assessed. With this in mind, we hope to think about the range and application of the term 'bodily excess' – to include profusion, violation, transgression, debauchery, compulsion, addiction, waste, surplus – in such a way that will attend to the dialectical relation between 'excess' and 'limit'.

Theme 2008-09 Dead Bodies and Transplanted Tissues

These sessions explore the relationship between two contentious and closely interleaved subjects: the shifting terrain of cultural and clinical attitudes towards death in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the issues raised by new cultures and technologies of human tissue transplantation and sale. Following the work of Philippe Aries, many scholars have criticised the apparent medicalisation of death in the modern West, in which death is constructed not as a physiological, social or metaphysical process but as a momentary event which can (and should) be defined and recorded for clinical, administrative and legal purposes. Similar questions about the definition of death as a social and clinical event have taken major roles in debates surrounding the transplantation and pro posed sale of human organs. Early clinical concerns about how to define the proper moment of death and window of organ removal have been complicated in recent debates about the permissibility of markets in human organs. The major question has become whether death terminates what anthropologist Don Joralemon has called the 'body-as-self' relation and permits an alternative perspective of the 'body-as-property': should dying be the signal for commodification? Drawing upon recent scholarship in philosophy and anthropology, this session explores the often-contentious confrontations between competing perspectives on organs, bodies and death.

LT 2009 Abnormal Behaviour, Medical Science and the Law

Theme Conveners:  Bonnie Evans and Simon Cohn

This term examines the way in which abnormal and 'anti-social' behaviour has been conceptualised using a biological model of causation. From an historical perspective, we will examine early constructions of abnormal and deviant behaviour and then explore their relation to current research in genetics and biology. Our aim is to investigate the legal and political implications of psychiatric, neurological and genetic research and treatment, and to examine how such developments have affected the provision of social welfare.

ET 2009 Care and Vulnerability

Term conveners:  Sian Pooley and Rachel Hughes

This term will explore care and vulnerability in a conceptual and comparative framework. How is care understood in political, philosophical, legal and historical discourses in different societies? How are concepts of vulnerability and ‘dependency’ constructed and experienced? The reading sessions will focus first on care as an important aspect of state welfare policies and international ethics, and second as an experience of individuals who receive and provide formal and informal care. 

Our first invited speaker, social worker and social policy academic Saul Becker, will examine these issues in the context of a study of the experiences of children who provide unpaid care to ill or disabled relatives (‘young carers’) in the UK.  Our second invited speaker, philosopher and ethicist Eva Kittay, will lead two separate sessions.  In the first, she will call into question the dichotomy that is set up between autonomy and paternalism in the context of care with reference to her concept of the ‘caring, transparent self’.  In the second, she will present a new argument on the subject of personhood and people with severe cognitive impairment.  

It is hoped that these seminars will encourage discussion of a wide range of issues, many of which are pertinent to current issues in health care and welfare policy: the boundary between formal and informal care; the relationship between vulnerability and dependency; surveillance of care and care as surveillance; and experiences of care and vulnerability across the life course. 

Past events

Health and Welfare Seminar
Gender Roles and Welfare Policy 30 Jan 2008 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH
Official and Legal Identity Registration in Comparative Perspective: Historical fragements in a bare landscape 13 Feb 2008 All day, CRASSH
Poverty, Entitlement and Welfare Policy 27 Feb 2008 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH
The Quest for Individuality and Welfare in Weimar and Nazi Berlin 5 Mar 2008 All day, CRASSH
Maintaining the ‘healthy’ body 7 May 2008 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Abnormal to Supernormal: The Medical Construction of the Athletic Body in 20th Century Britain 21 May 2008 12:30am - 12:30am, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Pain, disease and disability 28 May 2008 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
‘Classification’, ‘Identity’ and ‘The Body’ 13 Jun 2008 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
The transplantation and sale of organs and tissues: bodies as self and bodies as property 15 Oct 2008 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH Seminar Room, 17 Mill Lane
Will you save a stranger’s life? 29 Oct 2008 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH Seminar Room, 17 Mill Lane
Medicalised death: from social process to clinical moment (and back again?) 12 Nov 2008 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH Seminar Room, 17 Mill Lane
From theft to donation: an exploration of the change in attitudes to the use of dead bodies for medical science 26 Nov 2008 5:00pm - 7:30pm, CRASSH Seminar Room, 17 Mill Lane
Everyday life in a residence for people with intellectual impairments: A Conversation Analysis of interaction between residents and care staff 14 Jan 2009 2:00pm - 4:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane (Seminar room)
Health and Welfare Research Group 21 Jan 2009 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
When the anorexia is talking: Dividing the illness from the patient 4 Feb 2009 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 18 Feb 2009 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Do hormones in the womb affect how your brain develops? 4 Mar 2009 4:00pm - 5:30pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane (Seminar room)
Health and Welfare Research Group 29 Apr 2009 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
The politics and ethics of care 13 May 2009 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Experiences of care and vulnerability 27 May 2009 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Children as family carers: Global perspectives on ‘young carers’. 3 Jun 2009 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 10 Jun 2009 5:00pm - 7:30pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
A one-day symposium of Health and Welfare Research Group 18 Jun 2009 9:00am - 6:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 24 Jun 2009 11:30am - 3:30pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 14 Oct 2009 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 28 Oct 2009 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 11 Nov 2009 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Health and Welfare Research Group 25 Nov 2009 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Mirrors and Metamorphoses (Reading Group) 20 Jan 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Epistemology, Ontology, What’s that got to do with…Social Work, Medicine, Nursing? 21 Jan 2010 5:00pm - 7:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Delivering Mental Health Services in the Developing World: Basic Needs and the Model for Mental Health and Development 3 Feb 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Approaching Addiction (Reading Group) 17 Feb 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Dr Darin Weinberg: ‘The Social Reality of Addiction’ 3 Mar 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH 17 Mill Lane
Revisiting Health Inequality 28 Apr 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Stories or Numbers? Constructing ‘Evidence’ in Health Policy and Practice 6 May 2010 5:00pm - 7:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Obesity and Welfare Regimes 12 May 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Biomedicine, the Market and Health Inequalities 26 May 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Diabetes peer Education among Turkish Migrants in Berlin: self-help for self-care 9 Jun 2010 12:15pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Annual Symposium 2010 16 Jun 2010 9:30am - 6:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Mapping Medicine’s Behaviour 13 Jul 2010 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge This session also serves as background to Prof. Armstrong’s lecture in the next session.
Mapping Medicine’s Behaviour 13 Oct 2010 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Reading Group. This session also serves as background to Prof. Armstrong’s lecture in the next session.
(Health) Behaviour: The very Possibility 27 Oct 2010 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Professor David Armstrong (Kings College London)
Entangled Healths 10 Nov 2010 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Reading Group.
The Behaviour of Psychologists Designing Health Interventions: Stories from the Field 19 Nov 2010 12:00pm - 1:30pm, The Mond Building, Seminar room, New Museums Site, Free School Lane Dr Simon Cohn (University of Cambridge) Venue: The Mond Building
Educating Therapies? The School, the Clinic and Psychopathologisation 25 Jan 2011 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Dr Valerie Harwood (University of Wollongon, Australia)
Cognitive Enhancers: A Brave New World 2 Feb 2011 6:00pm - 8:00pm, William Harvey Lecture Theatre at the Clinical School, Addenbrooke’s Campus Prof Barbara Sahakian (Clinical Neuropsychology, Dept of Psychiatry, Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine) NB: Venue, William Harvey Lecture Theatre at the Clinical School
Anti-Psychiatry Revisited 9 Feb 2011 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Reading Group
The Bonds of the Therapeutic 23 Feb 2011 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Reading Group
Analysis Not Therapy: Speaking Out 11 Mar 2011 4:00pm - 6:00pm, Seminar Room 1, Dept of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane. Rob Weatherill (Psychoanalytic psychotherapist and lecturer in psychoanalysis St. Vincent's University College Hospital, Trinity College and the Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology). Venue HPS
Nudging Health- Postponed 15 June 4 May 2011 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Reading group.
Deciding on intervention 18 May 2011 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Reading Group
Services, Care Packages and Empowered Users 1 Jun 2011 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Dr. Marcus Redley, (University of Cambridge)
Nudging Health 15 Jun 2011 12:00pm - 2:00pm, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane Reading Group
Annual Health and Welfare Symposium 28 Jun 2011 All day, CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge Keynote speaker: Dr Monica Greco (Goldsmiths University of London)