Call for Papers
At stake are pressing questions: What does it mean to heal in the face of trauma, inequality, and despair? How do practices of care and healing confront or reproduce the emotional economies of neoliberalism, where resilience, positivity or “self-care” are often commodified? How might we imagine forms of care and solidarity that resist co-optation and instead foster justice, repair, and new possibilities of being together?
How are we to heal—not only physically, but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually and collectively? Or: How should the very notion of healing be rethought?
Such inquiries are not only central to surviving the present moment, but also to envisioning futures of reparation and redress in the aftermath of war, disaster and multifarious forms of trauma.
We invite contributions that critically explore the multiple forces—cultural, economic, institutional, and geopolitical—that shape practices of care and health, as well as the ways care itself becomes a terrain for negotiating power and (in)equality, or for building community beyond borders.
We welcome submissions that include empirical case studies, theoretical reflections, as well as artistic and literary analyses that examine the entanglements of health, bodies, culture, politics, and collective life across diverse contexts.
Suggested (but not limited to) the following themes:
- Health care systems and their political economies
- Biopolitics and the governance of bodies
- Mental health, embodied health, and the politics of well-being
- Health justice and inequalities of access
- Care studies in sociology and anthropology
- Medical institutions and their social roles; care infrastructure and careworkers
- Political depression and the welfare crisis
- Medical aid in conditions of war and climate change
- Alternative, artistic, and therapeutic practices (performance art, shen-xin-ling 身心靈 approaches, art therapy)
- Self-care as collective practice; collective forms of care, care for forms of life beyond the human
- Aesthetics of health, bodybuilding and beauty culture
- Aging, longevity, and intergenerational care
We particularly welcome papers that connect health politics to broader transformations in society, ecology, and culture, including those that critically interrogate how care is distributed, contested, and imagined under conditions of crisis.
AI Usage Disclosure
To ensure transparency in scholarly work, authors are requested to disclose any use of AI tools (e.g. for research assistance, drafting, rephrasing, translation, data analysis, or otherwise) in their full-paper submission.
We invite you to submit an abstract (300-400 words in English, 450-600 characters in Mandarin) alongside information about author and affiliation at the following application form (QR code on poster): https://forms.gle/yE1VXunxtbCng9GAA
