Mapping Morality in Global Health
26-27 Jun
Mapping Morality in Global Health
Co-organized by Freya Jephcott, Cambridge Infectious Diseases.
CRASSH, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge.
Convenors
Freya Jephcott (Cambridge Infectious Diseases, University of Cambridge)
Ferdinand Moyi Okwaro (Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo)
Wenzel Geissler (Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo)
Sophie Hermanns (Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge)
Jenny Thornton (Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge)
Summary
Contemporary discussions about global health are rife with accusations, assumptions and assertions of morality, immorality and the irrelevance of both. New tensions and debates regarding morality in global health have arisen from a long history of colonial and mission medicine, post-colonial internationalism, and ever-changing formulations of equity and provision. Some of these discussions see classical moral reasoning re-examined, for example, the rise of ‘effective altruism’ and its challenges to the role of the emotive and political. Others resent the reliance on big data and pragmatism that shapes utilitarian approaches to global health. The quieter assertions of amorality around pursuits of medical science and the angry indictments levelled at the economic models of pharmaceutical complexes rely on moralising language, too.
This conference will provide a forum to vocalize, exorcise and ignite ideas of morality in global health. By bringing together scholars from disciplines such as anthropology, history, economics, epidemiology, political science, literature and theology, we hope to chart the forms and places of morality in global health.
Registration now open at http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27450 £