Organizers

Olivia Killias (PhD, University of Bern) is a senior researcher and lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Zurich. The author of Follow the Maid: Domestic Worker Migration in and from Indonesia (NIAS Press, 2018), she is currently working on a research project entitled ‘Caring not to Forget: Memory, Colonialism and Loss in Dutch Eldercare’. In this research, she takes Dutch nursing homes explicitly designed to cater to older adults born in the Dutch East Indies as an entry point to explore the relation between memory, ageing and loss in contemporary postcolonial Europe.

Anja Orschulko is a social anthropologist working at the Institute of Nursing Science of the University of Basel. Within the context of the EPICENTRE-PARTICIPATIO project (Participation in long-term care: An ethnographic study on residential care (EPICENTRE), home-based care and assisted living (PARTICIPATIO) in the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft), she conducted ethnographic research on residents’ ‘participation’ in two Swiss nursing homes. Using observations, semi-structured interviews and informal conversations, the study aimed at exploring what ‘participation’ means to residents, their relatives and different staff members as well as when, why, how and in what ways such ‘participation’ is practiced – or not.

Eva Soom Ammann is a social anthropologist by training and is doing research and teaching as a professor at Bern University of Applied Sciences, Health Dept., where she leads a research group on Psycho-Social Health within the Applied Research & Development in Nursing department. She also holds a habilitation in Medical Anthropology at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern. Her research interests include, among other, diversities and inequalities in health care and the use of practice theories to better understand frictions in health care interactions, organizations and systems.

Dr Sandra Staudacher, PhD, is a social anthropologist, nursing scientist, and lawyer specializing in ageing, health, and care. She leads a Swiss National Science Foundation project (2024-2027) on participation in long-term care across various care settings. Since 2018, she has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Nursing Science, University of Basel, where she focuses on person-centred care, quality of life, and interprofessional approaches in long-term care. She also researches innovative care models at Maastricht University and has been co-president of Medical Anthropology Switzerland since 2021.

Lena Oberholzer is a Master student in Social Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Zurich. Her research interests include political anthropology, museum and migration studies. In addition to her studies at the University of Zurich, she works as a student assistant at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies and works at the PHSG in the Department of Gender and Diversity.