13 Jul UC-Santa Barbara Health, Medicine and Care Working Group (UC-SBHMCWG)
Conveners:
Zakiya Luna, Sociology
zluna@soc.ucsb.edu
Laury Oaks, Feminist Studies
oaks@femst.ucsb.edu
This RFG brings together diverse interests on campus and beyond with a broad but common interest on health, medicine and care. Approaches to health and medicine – such as an issue of social justice, a human right, a component of citizenship studies, and an aspect of gender, race, criminality, and class, to name just a few – allow us to examine societies in flux in a novel and exciting way. UCSB has neither a school of public health nor a medical school, yet more than 10 faculty members across the colleges work directly or tangentially on questions of health and disease. In addition, a handful of faculty research carework, including the issue of who provides care in formal and informal settings such as the home. The IHC itself has focused on issues of care. Multiple courses address these issues, including a new graduate course in the fall on the Politics of Health and Medicine. At the undergraduate level, students have formed their own organizations on health topics. The HMCWG conveners have already been contacted by UC Global Health Institute about potential collaborations. This RFG will create a space where common reading, talks, and discussion of works-in-progress can help build a community that will grow in coming years.