Health & Wellbeing
Aim of the new thematic group Health & Wellbeing
In Switzerland, geographers conduct critical research on health-related issues, including healthcare workers’ experiences in different institutional settings, mobilities of care workers, assisted reproductive technologies of reproductive health, environmental health and pollution, and patients’ experiences of health and wellbeing, among others. Despite this pivotal subfield in human geography, there is a lack of spaces for geographers working on health and well-being-related issues to exchange knowledge and practices.
The new ASG thematic group Health and Wellbeing aims to bring together researchers in geography studying the different factors that influence health and wellbeing and produce injustices, and the practices and discourses different individuals and institutions use to act upon such injustices in a transformative way. In particular, we 1) promote transdisciplinary research stressing collaboration between different stakeholders, including researchers, artists, non-governmental actors, civil society, patients, and policymakers. In line with current global debates in health-related research in geography and beyond, we aim 2) to advance participatory research and engage participants in research processes. Such an approach also recognises that 3) collaborating across different disciplines is fundamental for understanding health inequalities and for formulating recommendations to overcome such inequalities.
Concretely, the thematic group will organise workshops, meetings and talks to address issues related to health and wellbeing and to connect people working along those topics.
Leader : Maaret Jokela-Pansini (University of Oxford) und Susan Thieme (Universität Bern)