Italo Pardo

This intensive 5-day invitation-only workshop will draw on geographically diverse ethnographic knowledge on the management of health to develop anthropological reflection on legitimacy and legitimation (of ordinary people’s morality and actions; of the law; of politics; of governance). To date, this field of study has produced a robust and sophisticated debate through international meetings and publications. With a focus on the right to health and its empirical complexity, this workshop aims at developing new ideas through critical discussion among a strong field of early-, mid-career and senior scholars. The ethnograhically-based discussions will address conflicting practices and moralities in this critical field, taking stock of the problematic raised in theoretical anthropology on the legitimacy of ?the system?. The Covid-19 pandemic is graphically bringing to ahead the acute crisis of rulers? responsibility and accountability that mars public life in many democracies world-wide. Especially when it comes to health, the legitimacy of obscure, contradictory, inadequate, incompetent decision-making is increasingly questioned at the grassroots. This workshop will demonstrate that knowledge gained through long-term field research is key to our understanding and addressing this complexity. A major aim is to demonstrate the epistemological significance of charting new theoretical directions on ?legitimacy? and ?legitimation? as loci of ethnographic research in this field.