Portraying Religion and Health - Photo Essay Award

Abstract (English)

The relationship between religion/spirituality and health is an expanding area of anthropological research, prompted in part by the global spread of alternative, complementary and nonconventional medicines, the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, and greater public interest in the intersection of religion and health.
Various forms of collaboration, intersection, negotiation, competition and conflict between religions and spiritualities on one side and biomedicine, and alternative, complementary, non-conventional and traditional medicines on the other side continue to exist and form. Religions and spiritualities may also include not only healing rituals, but also harmful practices to oneself or the others, like collective suicide, witchcraft, ingestion of harmful substances, and extreme body practices.
The Round Table aims to present visual explorations of the multifaceted relationships between religion, spirituality, and health, bringing the participation of the winners of the IUAES Portraying Religion and Health Award, that was organised by the IUAES Commissions the Anthropology of Religion, Museums and Cultural Heritage, Visual Anthropology, Medical Anthropology and Epidemiology, and the Anthropology of Pandemics.
The contributions span on various geographical and cultural contexts, and a plurality of methodological, theoretical and aesthetic perspectives. The works capture the experiences, actors, contexts and materialities that emerge from these relationships.