17.09.2025
This year saw the Medical Anthropology Conference Europe arrive in Vienna – an opportunity not to be missed by the ALTERBIOTIC team. The conference brought together researchers from across Europe and beyond, to discuss how shifting definitions of health and wellbeing are shaping medical practices, policies, and everyday life.
ALTERBIOITIC’s Kirstin Bentley joined the conference with an open eye to ongoing anthropological work on themes relevant to ALTERBIOTIC – here is Kirsty’s digest:
Medical Anthropology as a discipline provides a powerful lens through which to examine how health and wellbeing are understood and experienced across different cultural and social settings. This perspective is important for understanding antimicrobial resistance, which goes beyond biology and medicine to involve social influences and changes in behaviour.
Kirsty’s highlights of the conference were the talks, “The Microbiome Multiple”, which tracked the manufacture story of the microbiome, and “Medical anthropologists in global ‘One Health’ assemblages”, wherein key insights were provided into the adoption of the One Health scheme in Kenya, Sierra Leone and Switzerland.
Kirsty also partook in a laboratory session, “Sensory Engagements with Microbes”, led by César Giraldo Herrera, which offered a thoughtful rethinking of human-microbe relations through sensory practices such as vision – challenging participants to question notions of ‘objective vision’ and what is deemed as ‘scientific’, ‘truthful’, or ‘neutral’ observation.
We look forward to more fruitful discussions with scholars in the field of Medical Anthropology and thank the organisers and speakers for an interesting and insightful few days!
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