CFP: New biomedical geographies of disability and chronic illness

Please see below a CALL FOR PAPERS for a session at the RGS-IBG Annual
Conference, London, 27-29 August 2008. Please circulate widely.

Session title: New biomedical geographies of disability and chronic
illness

Organisers: Ed Hall, University of Dundee and Isabel Dyck, Queen Mary,
London

Sponsored by: Geography of Health Research Group

In recent years, a whole new set of medical technologies have emerged
with which to diagnose, assess, treat and reshape the bodies of people
with disabilities, chronic illnesses and mental health problems. From
pre-natal diagnosis of particular disabilities, abnormalities and even
chronic illnesses, and biomedical and genetic screening and testing for
disabilities and illnesses, to pharmaceutical treatments for mental
health conditions and surgical procedures and appliances to
‘correct’ abnormal body shapes and movements, biomedicine is
maintaining and arguably extending its dominance of the discourse of
health and disability. This is despite a decade or more of emphasis on
the social and spatial contexts and structures within which bodies and
health are constructed.

This session will seek to examine the nature and extent of biomedical
imaginings of the ill and disabled body, covering the following
questions:

- What is the role of biomedicine in (re)producing disability and
chronic illness?
- What are the implications of biomedical discourse and institutions
in the technocratic processes through disability is categorised and
legitimised and, further, how does this biomedical power mediate access
to resources by disabled and chronically ill people?
- What techniques and practices is biomedicine using to diagnose, treat
and shape ill and disabled bodies?
- What role does medical technology play in the lifecourses of disabled
people and those with chronic illness?
- Is the social constructionist understanding of disability and chronic
illness being replaced by a resurgent biomedicine?
- How are patients, illness groups and disability organisations
resisting these new developments?

Please submit a short abstract (250 words maximum) to both Ed Hall
(e.c.hall@dundee.ac.uk) and Isabel Dyck (i.dyck@qmul.ac.uk) by 8
February 2008 if you are interested in participating in the session.

Dr. Edward Hall
Lecturer in Human Geography
Department of Geography
University of Dundee
Dundee
DD1 4HN
UK

Tel: 01382 388073
Email: e.c.hall@dundee.ac.uk