Emerging from the field of medical anthropology, the MAYS 2016 conference will explore the temporal and intergenerational dynamics of health, illness, and medicine. Illnesses, health diagnostics, aging, and politics of prevention are life events that require us to reinterpret our past and to negotiate with medical professionals, public health institutions, and healthcare systems.
As we negotiate such events, we learn how to intervene in the present as well as to plan or "design" our hypothetical future. Health conditions and healing processes force us to reflect on our life course in profoundly new ways.
Life course temporalities allow us to enter into new systems of commitments and purposes regarding health and well-being.