Gonzalo Araoz
Gonzalo Araoz PhDAnthropologist, Artist, TranslatorAfter having been involved in anthropological research and development projects in rural areas of the Bolivian Lowlands (e.g. with the Tsimane people in the North-West and with the Weenhayek in the South) and Highlands (mainly with Quechua speaking communities in the Andean Department of Oruro), I developed a doctorate research on the spatial and temporal configuration of identity and difference in the Carnival of Oruro. My involvement in the study of festivals emerged from a perceived need to develop a reflective approach to socio-economic, political and cultural phenomena observed in urban multi-cultural contexts. As a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of Cumbria, I founded the Transatlantic Research and Development Network on Mental Health and the Arts TRAMHA (www.tramha.org), which brings together people from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds to explore and discuss the links between creativity and mental health in different Latin American and European contexts. In the last decade I also organised, curated, and edited books from a series of conferences on Madness with Inter-Disciplinary Network (IDNet) in Oxford. I am currently organising the 1st TRAMHA International conference on Madness and the Arts which will take place in September 2019 in La Paz, Bolivia, and where I plan to give continuity to recent dialogues particularly in relation to madness, the grotesque, the representation of evil and the arts. Most of my investigations have been characterised by a multidisciplinary approach to the study of socio-cultural processes. The study of spatial behaviour and temporal perception demanded, for example, special attention to the contributions of history, philosophy, literature, psychology, architecture, ethnomusicology and the visual arts. Additionally, my investigations in the Andes, the Amazon basin, and the Chaco region have shed light upon some cultural features of these three main areas of South America. They also enabled me to explore topics as varied as mythological narratives, dance performances, ritual practices, culture and the environment, kinship and social space, concepts of health and illness, notions of space and place, temporal perception, visual anthropology and the history of the anthropological gaze. My visual and written work is largely built upon bricolage, not only as pictorial and literary technique, but also as a way of perceiving, understanding and interacting with my surroundings. I firstly engaged in visual artistic activities through recycling available objects and images, giving them new meanings and shapes and exploring their probable origins and future potential. This has also allowed me to reflect about my own position within the historical, geographic and cultural contexts in which I have worked, which is materialised in my anthropological and fictional writing and in my artistic production in different techniques. I pay particular attention to the ways in which a wide range of stimuli can be perceived through different senses, and how these phenomena overlap creating an infinity of possibilities, some of which are reflected in my visual and written work.
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Books by Gonzalo Araoz
Papers by Gonzalo Araoz
diabetes services are undergoing a major process of reorganisation, including the devolvement of routine diabetes care/
diabetic review from secondary to primary healthcare settings. This qualitative study was devised to explore newly
diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients’ perceptions of their disease and the health services they receive at a time when this
restructuring of services is taking place. The sample comprised 40 patients resident in Lothian, Scotland, who had
diverse experiences of services, some receiving GP-based care only, others having varying contact with hospital diabetes
clinics. In-depth interviews were undertaken with patients, three times at six monthly intervals over 1 year, enabling
their experiences to be tracked at critical junctures during the post-diagnostic period. Disease perceptions and health
service delivery were found to be mutually informing and effecting. Not only did (different types of) health service
delivery influence the ways in which patients thought about and self-managed their disease, over time patients’ disease
perceptions also informed their expectations of, and preferences for, diabetes services. We thus argue that there is a need
for a reconceptualisation within the medical social sciences to take into account the context of healthcare and the
economic/policy factors that inform health service delivery when looking at patients’ disease perceptions. We also
discuss the logistical and ethical challenges of drawing upon patients’ perspectives, preferences and views in the design
and delivery of future health services.
Talks by Gonzalo Araoz
diabetes services are undergoing a major process of reorganisation, including the devolvement of routine diabetes care/
diabetic review from secondary to primary healthcare settings. This qualitative study was devised to explore newly
diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients’ perceptions of their disease and the health services they receive at a time when this
restructuring of services is taking place. The sample comprised 40 patients resident in Lothian, Scotland, who had
diverse experiences of services, some receiving GP-based care only, others having varying contact with hospital diabetes
clinics. In-depth interviews were undertaken with patients, three times at six monthly intervals over 1 year, enabling
their experiences to be tracked at critical junctures during the post-diagnostic period. Disease perceptions and health
service delivery were found to be mutually informing and effecting. Not only did (different types of) health service
delivery influence the ways in which patients thought about and self-managed their disease, over time patients’ disease
perceptions also informed their expectations of, and preferences for, diabetes services. We thus argue that there is a need
for a reconceptualisation within the medical social sciences to take into account the context of healthcare and the
economic/policy factors that inform health service delivery when looking at patients’ disease perceptions. We also
discuss the logistical and ethical challenges of drawing upon patients’ perspectives, preferences and views in the design
and delivery of future health services.