Hope and Uncertainty in Health and Medicine: Imagining the Pragmatics of Medical Potential

In health and medicine, imagining the future is essential in giving meaning to the past and the present and for propelling people into action. This is true not only at the level of individuals as they envision and carry out everyday activities and long-term plans but also for institutional practices framed by and unfolding within various socio-political ecologies and transfigurations. Hope and uncertainty are critical affective and knowledge-related modalities of such imaginations and assume vital meanings in policing, managing, and experiencing health, illness, and well-being. This volume brings together contributions from medical anthropologists who address this theme across various medical spheres, including the pragmatics of hope and uncertainty, the techno-sphere, health management, and individual and socially distributed emotions.

Bernhard Hadolt (Dr.) is an anthropologist with a particular interest in medical anthropology, especially the anthropology of biomedicine. He carried out research in Austria, Japan, and the Philippines. His topics include social practices, social transformation, and policy making in the fields of assisted reproductive technology, genetic testing, vaccination and blood donation. He works as a senior lecturer at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Universität Wien.
Andrea Stöckl (Dr.) is a medical anthropologist and practising psychotherapist (Existential Analysis), working in Innsbruck, Austria. She earned a PhD in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 2001 and has been a lecturer at the School of Medicine, Health Policy, and Practices, at the University of East Anglia until 2021. Her research included vaccination policies and ethics of assisted personal devices.