Conference • NNHSH 2014 Theme: Creative and able citizens: managing health and illness during the life course

As the Nordic welfare states evolve – with ideologies that focus on an increased consumption of health services – citizens are required to be productive throughout their life course. And because fewer economic resources are being invested into basic health care, and there is a move to shift more responsibility onto the individual (patient), it is becoming essential to illuminate practices that showcase the creative ways that people engage in self-care and agency in everyday-life. This conference aims to discuss how to develop new perspectives on health and illness in the Nordic welfare states. The emphasis will be on creativity and ableism as key elements in people’s and patients’ constructions of meaning, especially with regard to questions about health and rehabilitation. Among other things, the concept of creativity encompasses energy, liveliness, artfulness and agency – on both an individual and a collective level. Moreover, creativity refers to activities that are performed and practiced by able citizens and organisations. However, ableism is also a scholarly perspective that criticises traditional perceptions of normativity, particularly embodied normativity. The conference organisers would like to invite papers that critically examine the challenges and opportunities prompted by such creativity: What sort of creative practices do people apply to attain a good life for themselves while ill or frail? In what terms and under what circumstances are bodies perceived as being able – or not? How do such practices and attitudes affect people’s experiences and expressions of health and illness? How do we as researchers contribute to the articulation of creativity and ableism, and how do these concepts affect us as professionals and fellow human beings