Transnational Medication Practices, Migration and Superdiversity

WORKSHOP LEADER: Dr Antje Lindenmeyer, Institute of Applied Health Research, MDS

Medications are deeply embedded in people’s social and cultural lives. A ‘new medical pluralism’ encompasses transnational flows of healthcare philosophies, practitioners and users. As people are leading increasingly transnational lives, medications are ‘on the move’ too; from prescription medications bought over the counter elsewhere to traditional and herbal preparations. Migrants’ medication practices have been studied by medical anthropologists, social scientists and applied health researchers; it is however important to put these different fields into dialogue. Knowing more about how people source and use medications, and what these medications mean to them, have practical applications for health practitioners caring for migrants as medication practices may fall outside and be invisible to statutory healthcare encounters. However, it also links to interdisciplinary research charting the wider global flows of knowledges, objects and people as well as the obstacles and barriers put in their way.

Proposed outcomes from the workshop:

• Strengthening links between the internal collaborators
• Developing networks with external collaborators
• Writing joint publication (position paper)
• Collaborating on funding applications

Antje Lindenmeyer is a Lecturer in Qualitative Methods in the Institute of Applied Health Research.  Antje’s background is in social sciences and her research interests centre on human interaction and understanding around health and illness, including the experience of living with illness and the social context of healthcare encounters.