Hymen Restoration in Georgia Hymen Restoration (HR) is an operation that a significant number of women in Georgia (Caucasus) undergo by choice or encouraged by their families. Taking place in private clinics, it is a service for women who have been premaritally sexually active, to reconstruct them as virgins. Within the Georgian context, little research exists on the motivations of these women, or about the physical and emotional consequences of this practice. Georgian women continue to subscribe to particular models of femininity, which restrict their sexual lives in comparison with their male counterparts (Curro’, 2012). However a review of anthropological research suggests that HR may also reflect Georgian women’s active agency: they are often the main breadwinners of the family and highly visible public players (World Economic Forum, 2014). My goal is to contribute to anthropological explorations of virginity and related interventions such as FGM and genital cosmetic surgery. I will be using a medical anthropology approach, conducting fieldwork in an HR clinic as well as among local households. I hope that closer investigation of the relationship between medical practice, family and gender relations will enable data collection that will inform initiatives to address any issues of harm minimisation.

If we take death as the ultimate harm, the UK has never been a more harmful place for people who use substances. Death rates from both drug- and alcohol- specific reasons are at their highest ever level. Moreover, some areas are experiencing their worst HIV outbreaks among injecting drug users in 30 years, and alcohol-related liver disease is rising steeply. As Covid-19 works to ‘expose and amplify’ existing inequalities, the fear is that these deaths/harms will increase further. However, Covid-regulations have also brought drastic changes to the sector, including long-sought flexibilities in treatment options and regimes. Prominent practitioners refer to these as ‘ripping up the rulebook’ and a ‘natural experiment’ with ‘potential for a lot of learning’. This project studies these experimental practices and what they open-up for improving treatment attractiveness and responsiveness. It maps experiments in service provision through a UK-wide survey and carries out ethnographic inquiry to establish how these practices re-work treatment and the role of service users’ own experimentations in these processes. Extending this experimentality through its methodology, the project brings together key stakeholders in a theatre-informed workshop to quite literally ‘rip up the rulebook’ (clinical/policy guidelines) to provoke further thinking and action on treatment possibilities. UK death rates from both drug- and alcohol-specific reasons are at their highest ever level. Moreover, there are ongoing HIV outbreaks among injecting drug users, and alcohol-related liver disease is rising steeply. As Covid-19 works to ‘expose and amplify’ existing inequalities, the fear is that these deaths/harms will increase further. However, Covid-regulations have also brought drastic changes to treatment provision, including long-sought flexibilities in options and regimes. Prominent practitioners refer to these as ‘ripping up the rulebook’ and a great 'natural experiment'. I will study these experimental practices and what they open-up for improving treatment attractiveness and responsiveness (to diverse needs). I will do this by surveying UK services, conducting ethnographic inquiry at specific sites, and facilitating theatre-based workshops with key stakeholders to provoke new thinking and action, which will then be developed into a play and film for engaging wider policy and practice audiences for engendering lasting change.

Exploring the Body: Interdisciplinarity in Practice Studying the body beyond its scientific sphere has gained great prominence in the last few decades. It has been increasingly established that disciplines such as the arts, history of medicine, medical anthropology and philosophy of medicine provide aspects of enquiry and interpretation which are valuable not only within and across these disciplines, but are also applicable for health professionals. The proposed series of events which will i naugurate the new Goldsmiths Centre of the Body, will focus on exploring the body through interdisciplinary approaches. In these events we will explore how very different disciplines and practices dealing with the body can not only illuminate each other, but also inform each other. The series, which will run in the academic year 2012-13, will present a number of dialogues and performance-presentations, showcasing interdisciplinary research, art and performance with some of the key figures who are profoundly engaged in interdisciplinary work on the body.

Drug-related deaths are at an all-time high in the UK as people who use drugs are failing to matter. Drawing on ‘matter’ as a social and material process, which is ‘done’ rather than ‘given’, there is a sociological imperative to address this (lack of) ‘mattering’. Using an explorative and innovative methodology, the project will explore ethnographically some of the current and hidden ‘mattering’ or care practices across three field-sites in London – at a drug service, drug policy advocacy organisation and recovery theatre company. Following these observations, interviews will look more specifically at where ‘failings’ in care may be occurring – where some ways of ‘being with drugs’ are made more possible than others and as a result how some marginalised forms lead to harmful encounters with drugs. Finally, the project will ambitiously ‘intervene’ within these ‘mattering practices’. It will conduct workshops to map embodied experiences of drug use, and develop an installation for public engagement. By exhibiting these outputs, the project will help engender a more responsive and responsible public to drug use, directly addressing this shared problem in which people who use drugs are dying more than ever. Key words: drug-related deaths; harm reduction; care practices; creative methods Deaths recorded from drug misuse and poisoning in the UK are at an all-time high and continue to rise. As an emerging public health crisis, little is known about this increase and how to address it. Surprisingly, this situation is also failing to attract much political attention as commentators point to continued marginalisation of people who use drugs (PWUD). Addressing these concerns, this project seeks to explore ethnographically, across three field-sites, the experiences of PWUD and how they are cared for, both in attending to their health needs and bringing such needs to political and public attention. Furthermore, in an arts-based workshop, I will invite participants to map embodied experiences in gaining a better understanding of these needs. These outputs will contribute to developing an art-installation, and together will be exhibited to the public, including policy-makers and practitioners, to improve understanding and responsiveness to the current crisis.

This study will be based on research of patients notes in Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and admission registers of London County Asylums, which are kept in the London Metropolitan Archives. The aim is to analyse the child population in Bethlem, as historians note that it admitted an unusually high number of youngsters, an earlier study found that 1069 patients under the age of twenty were taken in between 1815 and 1900. Since the hospital did not admit patients with chronic conditions, none o f its child inmates were idiot or epileptic, as was the case in most other hospitals. This makes the Bethlem cohort unique in its size and relative homogeneity. The group studied will be under the age of fifteen, therefore the numbers will be significantly lower than 1069 of the under twenty category. This will make feasible a thorough examination of the patients notes with the view of reconstructing the clinical picture that the admitted children presented. The findings from Bethlem will be compared with figures from London county asylums in order to see if Bethlem was altogether unique or if its number of children inmates reflected the situation in London.