26 Sep
0

Obstacles and moral experiences with palliative care provision in humanitarian crises…

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events, Palliative Care Research (EPC-IHA), Research

From September 17-19, Kevin Bezanson represented the Humanitarian Health Ethics research group at the 5th International Public Health and Palliative Care Conference held in Ottawa, ON.

Here is the PDF version of the poster entitled –

Health professionals’ lived experiences of palliative care provision in humanitarian crisis: Moral experiences confronting the suffering of patients who are dying or likely to die in settings of war, disaster, or epidemic.

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Kevin Bezanson presenting the HHE poster at the 5th International Public Health and Palliative Care Conference, Ottawa, ON, Sept. 17-19, 2017.

 

The poster is based on ongoing research for a R2HC funded project entitled:

Aid when there is ‘nothing left to offer’: A study of ethics and palliative care during international humanitarian action

The research project is funded by Elrha’s Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Programme. The Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) programme aims to improve health outcomes by strengthening the evidence base for public health interventions in humanitarian crises. Visit www.elrha.org/work/r2hc for more information. The R2HC programme is funded equally by the Wellcome Trust and DFID, with Elrha overseeing the programme’s execution and management.
18 Sep
0

Resisting Borders, 9-11 October 2017

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events, Invitations to Participate

CLICK HERE FOR THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Refugees and many migrants suffer from limits on their abilities to move around the world, even in pressing or urgent circumstances. They are often forced to leave their homes for reasons beyond their control, including war and civil unrest, political and religious persecution, economics, or famine and other natural or man-made disasters. Once displaced, whether internally or externally, they face pressing needs for food, water, shelter, and health care. Local governments, international agencies and non-governmental organizations often struggle with providing for their needs, particularly in resource-poor regions of the world. Recent socio-political changes in the United States, Western Europe and elsewhere have placed additional restrictions on the rights of migrants and refugees.

In solidarity with these refugees and migrants, we are hosting a no-travel virtual conference to explore the ethical, legal, philosophical, and social issues associated with refugee and migrant health in a world of economic, geopolitical, and psychological borders.

ResistingBorders_Picture

Location: Online (no travel)

Cost: Free

For registration and other information: http://www.resistingborders.com

21 Mar
0

MARCH 31 CFP: Chapter contributions for volume on Humanitarian Action and Ethics

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events, In the News, Invitations to Participate

Humanitarian actors are now pressed to respond to increasingly complex crises in diverse and difficult contexts. Historically subject to multiple and often divergent interpretations, humanitarian values are now further challenged by changing conflict dynamics, globalization and its effect on shifting power relations, and a more sustained criticism of established forms of humanitarian response. Though under appreciated, ethical reflection offers an opportunity for deeper evaluation of humanitarian action, and its impact on those who endeavour to alleviate suffering and protect human dignity during, and in the aftermath of, humanitarian crises. This edited volume seeks to bring together academics and practitioners engaged in all aspects of both direct humanitarian response and scholarly humanitarian reflection, with the aim of offering a nuanced insight into the complexity of the humanitarian experience in a diversity of crisis contexts. As such, we welcome contributions related to any aspect of humanitarian action and ethics, with a particular interest in practitioner perspectives.

Call for Papers:

The volume is due to be submitted in its entirety by the 1st of August 2017. To be considered for inclusion in this volume, please kindly submit a 200-word abstract by the 31st of March to a.ahmad@ucl.ac.uk

Dr Ayesha Ahmad and Dr James Smith

21 Mar
0

Not to be missed! Two incredible upcoming talks hosted by McMaster History of Medicine

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events

Title:  “The Drowned, the Saved, and the Forgotten: Genocide Survivors and the Foundations of Modern Humanitarianism” 

Speaker:   Dr. Keith Watenpaugh, Professor and Director, Human Rights Studies Program, Co-Director University of California Human Rights Collaboration, Department of Religious Studies, University of California at Davis

The talk will take place:

  • Wednesday, March 22, 2017
  • 3:00pm to 5:00pm
  • Health Sciences Building/McMaster Medical Centre (HSC) 1A6

Abstract:  All humanitarian emergencies are not created equal, or at least not constructed in the humanitarian imagination equally.  Where they happen, who is affected, the judged “worthiness” of victims and the quality of need are among the several conditions that transform how a problem of humanity becomes a problem for humanity, like genocide.  Examining the international humanitarian response to the genocide of the Ottoman Armenians (1915-1922), he argues that modern humanitarianism and genocide have a complex and intertwined history that has particular relevance to concepts like humanitarian neutrality, humanitarian governance and the role of justice in relief and what would be called now, rights-based development.

Biography:  Professor Keith David Watenpaugh studies the history, theory and practice of human rights and humanitarianism and directs the UC Davis Human Rights Studies Program. He is author of Bread From Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (California, 2015) and Being Modern in the Middle East (Princeton, 2006). His work has been translated into French, German, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish and Persian.

 

 

Title:  “Refugees, Human Rights, and the Syrian War” 

Speaker:   Dr. Keith Watenpaugh, Professor and Director, Human Rights Studies Program, Co-Director University of California Human Rights Collaboration, Department of Religious Studies, University of California at Davis

The talk will take place:

  • Wednesday, March 22, 2017
  • 7:30pm to 9:00pm
  • Health Sciences Building/McMaster Medical Centre (HSC) 1A1

Abstract:  With several years of fieldwork in Syria and the Middle East, Dr. Watenpaugh will trace a history of the conflict in Syria and an understanding of the situation of Syrian refugees.  He has worked with Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey and will provide some insights for health professionals working with these populations.  He will explore the legal dilemmas of global humanitarianism and will address the recent ban on Muslims and refugees in the United States.

These two talks are co-sponsored by the following:

Department of History , Orphan Sponsorship Program, McMaster Muslim Student Association,  Department of Health, Aging, Society, Humanitarian Healthcare Network, Department of Religious Studies

The History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Speaker Series is made possible by an endowment from Associated Medical Services (AMS).

For more information; please contact the Hannah Chair Dr. Ellen Amster at:  amstere@mcmaster.ca.

16 Mar
0

Call for Papers (April 15th): Resisting Borders – A Virtual Conference on Refugee and Migrant Health, Mobility, Human Rights and Responsibilities

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events, Invitations to Participate

Refugees and many migrants have long suffered under constraints on their mobility, even in pressing or urgent circumstances. They are often forced to leave their homes for reasons beyond their control, including war and civil unrest, political and religious persecution, economics, or famine and other natural or man-made disasters. Once displaced, whether internally or externally, they may face pressing needs for food, water, shelter, and health care. To explore these and other overlapping issues, in solidarity with these refugees and migrants we are hosting a no-travel virtual conference to explore the following questions:

 What kinds of restrictions on movement and travel of refugees are ethically permissible and which are not? When if ever are such restrictions ethically justifiable for refugees with needs for health services?

 Greater acceptance and humanitarian support is presented as being in tension with greater concerns for security, but how does this tension play out empirically and philosophically?

 What are the implications of ethically justified and unjustified restrictions? For example, in what ways do they create or perpetuate inequities?

 What is the proper moral response of and toward states that opt to provide acceptance and support versus those that opt for restrictions on refugees and migrants?

 

 Are there lessons from history that can shine light on the ethical dimensions and significance of mobility restrictions on refugees and migrants, and on fitting moral responses?

… and many other critical areas of inquiry.

We are especially interested in contributions from scholars and practitioners working in the areas of refugee health and/or international humanitarian law, immigration and security, health law and policy. Submissions from those who come from or work in regions facing travel restrictions are especially encouraged.

Interested participants should submit an abstract of 250 words no later than Saturday, April 15th, 2017. Abstracts should be submitted via email to the Organizing Chairs at info@resistingborders.com.

All abstracts should be in Word or RTF formats and contain the following information: a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) type of presentation (oral paper or panel presentation), and g) 3 keywords.

Panel presentations should consist of three to four abstracts organized around a central topic of direct relevance to the conference theme. Please use a plain sans serif 12-point font and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). More information will be forthcoming at http://resistingborders.com

09 Mar
0

TALK: Corpses and Places: Remaking World and Afterworld in a Camp for Displaced Persons Elizabeth Dunn

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events

Corpses and Places: Remaking World and Afterworld in a Camp for Displaced Persons

Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Time: 3:30-5:00 pm

Location: Degroote School of Business, Room 505

Abstract: For refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), displacement is more than a technical problem of logistics and delivery, and more than just a problem of maintaining biological existence.  It is an existential dilemma posed by the destruction not only of their homes, but of the world they once knew, including many of their social relationships, their attachments to places and the structures and practices they used to create meaning. In this talk, I look at how IDPs in the Republic of Georgia create topolgangers—two very different and distinct places on the identical terrain—to recreate the villages they lost on the grounds of the camp.   In doing so, they begin to reconstitute the world as a comprehensible space where action has meaning.

Biography: Elizabeth Dunn is a trained anthropologist and currently an associate professor cross-appointed in geography and international studies at Indiana University.  In addition to numerous academic articles and books on post-socialist privatization and questions of public health after communism, she has written on aid, humanitarianism, and refugee policy for Science, Boston Reviewand Slate, and this research has also been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Die Zeit, and SINC, a Spanish news agency.  More information can be found at http://www.elizabethcullendunn.com/

04 Oct
0

NOV 2, 2016 SAVE THE DATE – CERAH Panel on Health Care in Danger

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events, Invitations to Participate, Picturing Humanitarian Healthcare, Uncategorized

“When healthcare is in danger, what can we do?”

Time:  Wednesday November 2, 18:30 – 20:30
Location: Medical Faculty UNIGE, Auditorium A250, avenue de Champel 9, 1206 Genève

Attacks on medical facilities in conflict zones have killed and injured countless patients and healthcare professionals in recent years, destroying infrastructures and depriving people of access to medical care.
Moderator Prof Doris SCHOPPER, Director of CERAH, medical doctor and professor at the Medical Faculty of Geneva University will ask representatives of ICRC, WHO and MSF, who are exposed in the field together with affected populations: “When healthcare is in danger, what can we do?”

Panelists

  • Erin Kenney, Technical Officer, Stop Attacks on Health Care Workers, WHO
  • Marine Buissonière, Not A Target Senior Coordinator, MSF
  • Ali Naraghi, Head of the Health Care in Danger project, ICRC
Denunciating that medical facilities are #NotATarget, MSF will also present a short film and expose their expo booth in front of the auditorium.

Panel Discussion “When healthcare is in danger, what can we do?”

11 Aug
0

Humanitarian Ethics & Action Conference, Birmingham

Posted by Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Network in Announcements, Events

The 3rd Annual Conference of the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics
The University of Birmingham
1st and 2nd June, 2017
Theme: Humanitarian Ethics and Action
Organisers: Jonathan Parry and Jeremy Williams
 
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
 
Simon Caney (Oxford)
Cecile Fabre (Oxford)
Hugo Slim (ICRC)

Plus a Public Lecture by:

Leif Wenar (KCL)
 
The Centre for the Study of Global Ethics at Birmingham is pleased to announce its next annual conference, on the theme of humanitarian ethics and action (broadly construed).
 
As in previous years, the conference will feature both invited keynote speakers, speakers selected from a Call For Papers, and a public lecture.
 
Details of further speakers, the conference venue, and how to register, will be announced in due course. Please visit the conference website for updates, at:
 
http://www.globalethics2017.weebly.com/
  
CFP:
 
We welcome abstract submissions addressing the conference theme from faculty and graduate students in global and practical ethics, and legal, social and political philosophy/theory.
 
Abstracts should be 500 words in length, and suitable for presentation in 20 minutes. The deadline for submissions is 1st March 2017. All abstracts will be blind reviewed, so please do ensure that all identifying information is removed.
 
To submit your abstract, please send (i) the anonymised abstract in .doc or .pdf format, and (ii) a separate document containing author information (name, paper title, email address, affiliation) to globalethics2017@gmail.com.

For inquiries about the event or the CFP, please email globalethics2017@gmail.com.

Dr. Jonathan Parry

Birmingham Fellow in Global Ethics
Philosophy Department
University of Birmingham
Research Associate
Oxford Institute for the Ethics and Law of Armed Conflict (ELAC)
Affiliated Researcher
Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace (SCEWP)
[Photo credit: Emergency Architects; caption: Pakistan shelter built by Emergency Architects]