Bernhard Hadolt – författare

The landscape of healthcare is changing rapidly, both on an organisational and a technological level. This book gathers medical anthropologists to examine the ways that both patients and health care workers are being affected by new policies, market, and technologies. Contributors cover a wide range of topics, including vaccination, disability, migration, and self-medication, making clear that not only are changing circumstances leading to the emergence of new socialities, but they are also driving new ethics and moralities.

In health and medicine, imagining the future is essential in giving meaning to the past and the present and for propelling people into action. This is true not only at the level of individuals as they envision and carry out everyday activities and long-term plans but also for institutional practices framed by and unfolding within various socio-political ecologies and transfigurations. Hope and uncertainty are critical affective and knowledge-related modalities of such imaginations and assume vital meanings in policing, managing, and experiencing health, illness, and well-being. This volume brings together contributions from medical anthropologists who address this theme across various medical spheres, including the pragmatics of hope and uncertainty, the techno-sphere, health management, and individual and socially distributed emotions.