The main goal of this project is to analyse the ways in which ancient Hebrew, like ancient Tibetan, is a case of medical syncretism deriving from what is termed eastern and western medical traditions. Having initiated collaborative work on different aspects of cross-Asian transmissions of knowledge (as part of the Islam and Tibet , Medicine along the Silk Roads and Rashid al-Din projects, see list of publications), it has become clear that still missing from this newly emerging picture is the role of Jewish networks, encompassing Jewish physicians, pharmacists and traders, who had a major role in the trans- Asian and cross-cultural medical exchanges. This project will build on the work I have conducted so far on the multi-cultural aspects of Tibetan medicine. It will analyse the Hebrew Book of Assaf, as a syncretic text bringing together Greek, Hebrew and Indian medical knowledge and practice. The study of this text is extremely important for the history of early medicine, as it is a unique exemplar of a Sassanid period medical compendium. As such, its study is vital for a better understanding not only of Jewish, but also of Islamic, early European and Asian medicine. In assessing cross-Asian links in medical knowledge, the project will build on my personal and collaborative research in previous projects in the last five years, and progress to the next necessary stage, focusing on two main themes: 1. How did medical knowledge move across Asia? 2. What was the nature of the knowledge which moved? Dealing with Hebrew sources, this project will deal with the role of Jewish physicians, pharmacists and traders, who had a major role in the trans-Asian and cross- cultural medical exchanges. A main focus of the project will be a first of its kind multi-cultural analysis of the hugely important, yet understudied, Book of Assaf, an early (pre-Islamic) Hebrew medical compendium. As in the case of Tibetan medical histories, which present Tibetan medicine as a synthesis between Greek, Indian and Chinese medical systems, the Book of Assaf in its medical history section also presents its knowledge as deriving from the great traditions around it: the Greek, th e Egyptian and the Indian. This parallel description in the medical histories raises the interest in a comparative analysis regarding medical content as well, focusing on processes of transmission and adaptation of medical knowledge.

Meaningful dreams, visions and coincidences are a remarkably common feature of the dying process. While patients and families report their profound spiritual significance, mainstream clinical literature explains them in materialist terms. This project asks how health professionals respond to such events on the ground, whether they reflect this materialist approach or if there are examples of healthworkers engaging in more ontologically and epistemologically open ways. The research will explore how philosophical responses influence the day-to-day practices of care. It will also ask whether variation in interpretations of such events runs along existing lines of social or cultural difference among both healthworkers and patients. I will take a methodologically interdisciplinary approach combining an ethnography of a hospice in-patient unit (utilising my experience as a palliative care nurse) with narrative interviews of staff who have responded to deathbed experiences. Drawing on feminist care theory, science and technology studies and the medical humanities this study will explore the significance of responses to deathbed phenomena for both clinical knowledge practices and patient care. People often experience meaningful dreams and visions in the last days of their life. Healthcare professionals who work with dying patients acknowledge these events, even using them to predict when someone is likely to die. However the content of these experiences tend to be dismissed as unreal. This can create a disconnect with patients / families who often find them emotionally and spiritually valuable. Does this disconnect affect the ability of healthworkers to effectively care for patients in such moments? Arguably if something is not real, it does not matter and things that do not matter do not require care. Through working in a hospice and interviewing health professionals my project will explore whether this is the case or whether nurses, doctors and other staff do take these experiences seriously. If so, what are the consequences for how we understand what matters and what does not in medicine more broadly?

This practice-based research engages with Uruguay’s ongoing deinstitutionalisation process bringing together spatial theories of coexistence and participatory art. It draws on critical human geography to chart deinstitutionalisation as a social and spatial process, with the understanding that the departure from the psychiatric asylum must be negotiated well beyond its walls. This project combines techniques from contemporary documentary filmmaking and pedagogies of Latin American Third Cinema to experiment with audio-visual practice as a device for witnessing difference and reimagining life together within difference. This research will promote encounters between people, between disciplines, and between practice and theory, engaging in transformative community-processes and the public discussion of topical issues. It will operate micro-politically, employing artistic practice to bring into conversation service users, professionals and staff of Uruguay’s mental health system, carers and relatives, and other members of society. By enabling dialogues outside traditional settings and roles and extending the conversations on mental health beyond the bounds of disciplinary discourses and established institutions, this research will contribute to the understanding of mental health in the context of mad studies and critical disability studies, and will advance the dialogical potential of audio-visual practice and its development as a research method. Recent legislation in Uruguay set the deadline for closing all psychiatric asylums by 2025. However, the recurrent employment of confinement in Uruguay means that this occasion could introduce radical changes in mental health care or merely produce new ways of institutionalisation. Considering the deinstitutionalisation process through the lens of coexistence, I will identify the multiple spatialities and temporalities of confinement in contemporary Uruguay and explore the embodied practices that contest confinement and nurture plural coexistence. I will use audio-visual practice, combining documentary filmmaking and post-screening discussions to bring into conversation service users, carers, professionals and staff of Uruguay’s mental health system, and other members of society. By engaging in public discussion promoting encounters between people, between disciplines, and between practice and theory, this research will contribute to a critical understanding of mental health in contemporary Uruguay and will advance the development of audio-visual practice as a research method.

This study will apply a process theoretical approach in examining how MSM’s sexual practices and perceptions of health and illness are constitutively entangled. Privileging ontological performativity and multiplicity, the study aims to build an appreciation of how MSM's sexual practices participate in a larger ecology of practices, so as to examine how possibilities for changing sexual practices might be realised. The study will adopt a relational ontological and constructivist epistemological approach. In-depth, semi-structured interviews will be conducted and 3 different emic perspectives will be obtained from: (a) HIV negative MSM who ‘lapse’ into unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), (b) HIV negative MSM who intentionally engage in UAI and (c) HIV positive MSM. Ethnographic research will also be conducted at a sexual health clinic. Where observation is not possible (e.g. saunas, bars), the ‘interview to the double’ method will be used to represent and analyse MSM’s practices. In line with the study’s aim of exploring how a process oriented approach might address the practical challenges of informing health policy and HIV prevention efforts, a workshop with relevant stakeholders will be arranged to explore how the research can be translated into practical policy and health service delivery. Key words: HIV, health, ontology, practices