*Call for Papers: Annual Meeting for the American Anthropological Association*

November 16–20, 2016
Minneapolis, MN

Panel Title: At the Intersections of Anthropology and Medical Sciences: Possibilities and Risks of Interdisciplinary Collaborations

Organizers: Nelson Arruda (Sherbrooke University) and Jorge Flores-Aranda (Sherbrooke University)

Panel description: Anthropological methods and concepts have become highly used in the fields of medicine and health science as compelling tools to understand the social production of health and illness, to examine how power relations affect and are affected by the practices of individuals and to expose structural inequalities. Interdisciplinary teams constituted by anthropologists and scholars from a myriad of health related disciplines have brought ethnography into the study of social policies, public health interventions, global health exchanges, vulnerable populations targeted by diseases, and care practices of experts and lay persons. Thus, anthropology and medical sciences have intersected in multiple ways, fraught by the particular epistemological commitments and academic demands of each disciplinary field as well as the consequent tensions. Moreover, the increasing use of ethnography outside its disciplinary home could entail risks such as the lost of its meaning (e.g. “ethnographic” becomes interchangeable with “qualitative”), the consequent undermining of participant observation (its main way of working), the subordination of anthropological methods to quantitative ones as well as the curtailing of anthropology’s public voice and its impact in the world (Ingold 2014). This panel will explore how anthropologists navigate the possibilities and the risks that emerge from the intersections of anthropology and medical science: In which ways do we become methodological and theoretical bricoleurs assembling ideas and methods from different disciplinary fields for our own research agendas? How do we negotiate the adherence (or
not) of our research proposals to protocols of “positivist’ methodology that for example demand “representative” numbers of “informants” and precise “sampling” techniques? And in our own interdisciplinary teams are we able to ensure the prevalence of the ethnographic approach in the conception and implementation of our studies and interventions? The panel aims to put into dialogue scholars that have conducted interdisciplinary research (anthropology and health related disciplines) from diverse approaches and in different geographic areas. Our overall goal is to reflect on the challenges posed by our work and the potential impact of our collaborations with medical fields of knowledge in the lives of the persons we study.

Please send submissions to Nelson Arruda (nelson.arruda@usherbrooke.ca), Jorge Flores-Aranda (jorge.flores.aranda@usherbrooke.ca) and Rossio Motta (rossio.motta.ochoa@usherbrooke.ca) by 30 March 2016 at the latest.  Submissions should be no more than 250 words and should include a title and five keywords. Accepted panelists will be informed of their inclusion in the panel by April 3, 2016 and should register for the AAA 2016 conference by or before April 15th.

The annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology is next week in Vancouver, British Columbia!!

ADTSG will be holding a meeting at 5:30-7:20 on Thursday, March 31, in the Tangent Room.  If you are interested in learning about what ADTSG has been up to since the AAAs while catching up with your fellow members, please join us!

There are also several drug, alcohol, tobacco, and addiction-themed events that may be of interest to ADTSG members:

Tuesday, March 29

8:00am-6:00pm

PHOTO EXHIBIT: Danya Fast – “Living in the Best Place on Earth” (Bayshore Ballroom Foyer)

10:00am-11:50am

PANEL: Mental Health, Drug Use, and HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, B.C. (MacKenzie)

• William Damon – “Crisis” and “Everyday” Imitators: A Qualitative Study of Coercion and Agency in the Context of Methadone Maintenance Treatment Initiation
• Daryl Wiebe, Howard Tran, Andrew MacFarlane, and Lynn Noftle – Police/Health Collaboration to Assist Persons Living with Mental Illness
• Christiana Miewald, Sean Grieve, and Megan Woodward – Open Doors and Juggling Hats: The Lived Experience of Working as a Peer Researcher on the Food as Harm Reduction Study

10:00am-11:50am

PRESENTATION: Nicole Markwick, Ryan McNeil, Will Small, and Thomas Kerr: “If They Just Showed Respect”: Exploring the Impacts of Private Security Guards Upon People Who Use Drugs (Seymour)

12:00pm-1:50pm

PANEL: Contemporary Drug Ethnography’s Multiple Temporalities and Outcomes (Seymour)

• Ryan McNeil – Structural Vulnerability and the Resilience of Entrenched Drug Scenes
• Andrea Lopez, Megan Comfort, Christina Powers, Alex Kral, and Jennifer Lorvick – Altered Temporalities in the Study of the Socially Vulnerable: A Hybrid Ethnographic and Clinical Social Work Methodological Approach
• Alexandra Collins, Surita Parashar, Saranee Fernando, Kalysha Closson, Rosalind Baltzer Turje, and Ryan McNeil – Being “Worthy” of Care: Territorial Stigma across Neighborhoods and HIV Care Spaces in Vancouver
• Cole Hansen – Navigating Intersections of Ethnography and “Evidence” in Community Reentry
• Danya Fast – On the Edge of Homelessness in Vancouver’s Inner City: An Ethnography of the Emergent
• Discussants – Leslie Robertson and Kelly Knight

Thursday, March 31

8:00am-9:50am

PRESENTATION: Jeffrey Schonberg – Mourning and the Photography of Addiction (Prospect)

3:30pm-5:20pm

POSTER SESSION (Tower Lobby)

• Nicole Henderson – Connections Between the Folk Psychiatry of Addiction and Levels of Attributed Stigma

• Malisa Young – Don’t Box Me In: Black Youth and the Case for Differentiation in Tobacco Control

Friday, April 1

10:00am-11:50am

PRESENTATION: Bryan Page – Pressed Into Service: My Participation in the Presbyterian Church’s Task Force on Drug Policy (President)

1:30pm-3:20pm

PANEL: Pharmaceuticals and Drugs in Everyday Life (Cypress 1)

• Janet Currie – Off-label Prescribing: An Intersectional Approach
• Jenny Epstein – Community Pharmacy Practice and the Integration of Pharmaceuticals into Everyday Life
• Marlee McGuire – Stakeholders, Values, and Social License: The Social Shaping of Publicly Funded Drug Decision-Making
• Dan Ciccarone and Sarah Mars – Heroin Uncertainties: The Rise in New Forms of Heroin in the US
• Tarik Najeddine – Self-Medication in the Era of Novel Psychoactive Substances

1:30pm-3:20pm

PRESENTATION: Olivia Rose Marcus – Ritual and Rehab: Curanderismo and Addiction Rehabilitation in Peru (Arbutus)

Saturday, April 2

8:00am-9:50am

PANEL: Addictive Substances and Social Context (Fir)

• Emery R. Eaves – E-Cigarette Harm Reduction and the Emergence of “Vaping Community”
• Jude Robinson – Do You Smoke?
• Sarah Mars, Jason Fessel, and Dan Ciccarone – The Appreciation of Heroin: Connoisseurship and Its Absence in the Present Day United States
• Miriam Boeri – Hero or Heel? An Ethnographic Investigation of a Police Chief’s “Angel Program” for Opioid Addicts
• Jennifer Syvertsen, Kelly Yotebieng, Grace Rota, and Kawango Agot – Alcohol Cleans the Baby in the Womb: Reproductive Health Concerns among Women Who Inject Drugs in Western Kenya

8:00am-9:50am

PRESENTATION: Max Oostenburg – A Cultural Consonance Approach to Online Gaming Experience: Beyond Addiction and Disorder (Salon B)

Next week is a special peyote panel discussion and book signing in San Francisco! The program for the evening includes a number of special guests.

Presenters:
Stacy B. Schaefer
Bia Labate
Jorge N. Ferrer
Diana Negrin
Kevin Feeney
Clancy Cavnar

California Institute of Integral Studies
March 31st, 2016 / 7:00 – 9:30 PM / Namaste Hall
East-Psycology 1453 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

For more information: http://bit.ly/1QmEijq
About the book: http://bit.ly/1TDLOsQ

** please circulate widely**

Deadline: October 31, 2015 @ 5pm

The Alcohol, Drug, and Tobacco Study Group (ADTSG) of the Society for Medical Anthropology requests submissions for the best graduate student paper in the anthropology of alcohol, drugs, tobacco or similar substances. Qualifying submissions will be judged by a committee of ADTSG members.  The author of the winning paper will receive a cash award of $100 and her or his name will be announced in Anthropology News and at the Society for Medical Anthropology awards ceremony at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November. Submissions from all anthropological sub-disciplines are encouraged.

QUALIFYING CRITERIA

• No more than 9,000 words
• Must be based on original fieldwork and data
• Must have been written in the past 12 months
• Primary or first author must be a graduate student
• Must be unpublished at the time of submission

JUDGEMENT CRITERIA

• Originality of fieldwork and data
• Richness of substantive or evidentiary materials
• Clarity of anthropological methods
• Linkage of work to anthropological literature
• Effective use of theory and data
• Organization, quality of writing, and coherence of argument
• Contributions to anthropology of alcohol, drugs, tobacco or similar substances

SUBMISSION PROCESS

• Please do not include your name or any identifying information in the paper itself
• Papers must be double spaced and in PDF format (please include page numbers)
• References should be formatted in the American Anthropologist style
• Please submit an electronic copy to Tazin Daniels, chair of ADTSG at karimtaz@msu.edu
• Submissions must be received by 5:00PM EST, October 31, 2015 for full consideration.

Questions may be directed to Tazin Daniels at the above email address. We look forward to your submissions!