Public Health, Space, and Belonging in Africa: Past and Present
Call for papers
ECAS 2025 Panel
This panel at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), June 25-28, 2025 in Prague, will explore the intersections between public health, space, and notions of belonging and citizenship on the African continent from an interdisciplinary perspective, offering historical, sociological and anthropological case studies from the 20th and 21st centuries. We welcome contributions from these and related disciplines.
The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2024.
Public Health, Space, and Belonging in Africa: Past and Present
Health, disease, and concepts of identity, belonging, and also citizenship are closely linked to spatiality: Public health initiatives often shape and are shaped by perceptions of space, particularly in managing infectious diseases, where measures like border closures and quarantines are common. Non-infectious disease programs also operate with spatial categories, targeting at-risk areas for intervention. Public health efforts are often situated at the intersection of “global” and “local” visions of health interventions, navigating competing forms of knowledge.
This spatial conception of public health affects identity formation and exclusion in various ways. It can construct, reinforce, or disrupt identities and notions of citizenship: In colonial Africa, racial segregation was often justified as a public health measure, reinforcing racist categories and disrupting established neighbourhoods. More recently, measures against the Covid-19 pandemic have disrupted communal funeral traditions that are an essential expression of identity and social reproduction. But public health initiatives can also create new notions of belonging, for example in the context of community-based approaches at the height of HIV/AIDS, which fostered new senses of citizenship based on human dignity and social justice.
The panel offers an interdisciplinary approach, combining historical, sociological, and anthropological case studies from the 20th and 21st centuries. It asks how public health, space, belonging and citizenship intersect(ed) in different local settings in Africa, but also in a broader (trans-)national/-regional context, considering the globalization of public health and the impact of colonialism and decolonization.
Organizers: Caroline Meier zu Biesen (Athena Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Laura-Elena Keck (LeipzigLab/ReCentGlobe, Universität Leipzig)
For submissions, please use the following link:
https://guarant.eu/ecasconference2025/call-for-papers/index.php?coo=1
Contact Information
Laura-Elena Keck (LeipzigLab/ReCentGlobe, Universität Leipzig)
Contact Email
laura.keck@uni-leipzig.de
URL
https://www.ecasconference.org/2025/
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