Dear Sir/Madam,
Please find, below, details of the 2001 BioSocial Society's forthcoming
Symposium on HIV/AIDS. I would be very grateful if you could circulate
these details, and/or attach a link to the Symposium's website.
Many thanks.
Yours faithfully,
George Ellison PhD
Assistant Director
Social Science Research Unit
Institute of Education
18 Woburn Square
London WC1H 0NS
Learning from HIV/AIDS
2001 Symposium of the Biosocial Society
9am-5pm Friday 27th April 2001
Elvin Hall
Institute of Education
University of London
Contact: http://BioSoc2001.ioe.ac.uk/BioSoc/ (website available from 20th
December 2000)
Continuing the Biosocial Society's tradition of fostering a
multidisciplinary approach to drawing together research from different
disciplines as well as perspectives from academic, statutory and voluntary
sector organisations, the 2001 Biosocial Society Symposium, Learning from
HIV/AIDS will examine what HIV/AIDS might tell us about the bio(logical
and)social nature of the human condition at the beginning of the 21st century.
HIV/AIDS threatens not only to reverse the improvements in health brought
about by advances in sanitation and medicine, but also to undermine the
provision of public services and the impact of development policies and
globalisation. These concerns have resulted in substantial research
activity, both theoretical and applied, and have led to an unprecedented
array of publications examining individual, familial, communal, and global
"responses" to HIV/AIDS. Drawing on its multidisciplinary traditions, the
Biosocial Society's 2001 Symposium seeks to understand the extent to which
HIV/AIDS (as both biological entity and social phenomenon) might reveal
hitherto unexposed characteristics of the bio(logical and )social world in
which we live. Such an approach would ask the question: "What can HIV/AIDS
(as a unique, yet diverse and unprecedented phenomenon) tell us about the
biological and social nature of human society, and the way these two are
inter-related?". It is an approach that will draw together parallel (if not
necessarily complementary) strands of research to explore what HIV/AIDS,
and responses to HIV/AIDS, can tell us about the biosocial nature of
society the nature of the human immune system and biocultural predictors
of risk, the nature of social structures and identity, public policies and
epidemiological economics, as well as the contextual nature of the research
process itself. By examining what researchers from very different
disciplines have observed in their research on HIV/AIDS, a biosocial
approach seeks to transcend disciplinary boundaries and synthesise a
broader understanding of what it is researchers have found and how their
approach influences the insights and conclusions they have made.
The Symposium seeks to engage not only with the Society's existing
constituency of academics and students (interested in promoting a greater
understanding of biological and social issues through an explicitly
multi-disciplinary, biosocial approach) but also to engage with a broader
audience of academics, advocates and health care practitioners involved in
HIV/AIDS-related research, advocacy and practice, many of whom apply an
implicitly multidisciplinary approach when seeking to understand the causes
and ramifications of this phenomenon. To this end, the one-day Symposium
will comprise presentations from researchers in the fields of social
policy, economics, social psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology
and immunology, together with responses from practitioners, advocates and
representatives of public, private and voluntary sector organisations
engaged in the prevention, treatment and support of at-risk populations.
For further details, please contact the Symposium website
(http://BioSoc2001.ioe.ac.uk/BioSoc2001/ which will be available from 20th
December 2000)
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