With the attached Call for Papers, we would like to draw your attention to the workshop Historicizing Farm Animals: Cowsheds, Battery Cages, and Pigsties as Laboratories for One Health, organized by the Swiss National Science Foundation project Farm Animals in the Anthropocene (Prof. Flurin Condrau, Dr. Beat Bächi, Sara Müller und Henrik Jochum) and held from the 11th - 13th June 2025 at the University of Zürich.
This workshop aims to historicize farm animals in the history of medicine and to bring together historians of medicine, agriculture and science. The following questions will be at the core of our workshop: What counted as a healthy animal? What problems did veterinary medicine solve, and which new issues did it create? To what extent have changes in animal health and the industrialization of agriculture in the 20th century mutually shaped each other? Which actors were involved in producing ‘healthy’ animals? Where did their interests overlap, leading to cooperation or conflict? By broadening the scope beyond the risks of food production just for human health, we want to critically engage with the concept of One Health, which conceives of the health of humans, animals, plants and ecosystems as a singular complex. How can a historical perspective contribute to striving for More-than-One Health (Braverman 2023)?
The conference will feature a keynote by Hannah Landecker and plans to publish the presented papers as a special issue in a high-ranking journal. Participants are asked to pre-circulate a paper of 15 pages (5’000 words) by 15th May 2025. Contributions that offer critical reflections on new archival materials, unusual sources and different methodological approaches are particularly welcome. We will cover the travel and accommodation costs of those presenting a paper at the conference. Please submit an abstract of 400 words explaining the research question, approach, and source base by 14th June 2024 to Dr. Beat Bächi (beat.baechi@uzh.ch).