Messy Realities - the Secret Life of TechnologyAuthor: Oxford University
Discussing public engagement in research into assistive living technologies. The podcast series comprises conversations between health services researchers, Museum experts and community members on wide-ranging topics relating to assistive living technologies including living with disability, ageing, conservation and ethics. Studies in Co-Creating Assisted Living Solutions (SCALS) is a five-year research programme (2015-2020) funded by Wellcome and led by Professor Trisha Greenhalgh of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University. SCALS examines technology-driven or supported improvements in different health and social care organisational setting. Whilst hopes are high that technology can improve health, the reality of technology-in-use is often messy, with unintended consequences. The lives of older people with several medical conditions and social needs are often complex and evolve over time. Technologies designed to help these people often fit awkwardly into their lives, there is often a mismatch between the way people actually use assisted living technologies to help them live at home and their intended use. The Messy Realities project brought health services researchers, museum facilitators and community partners together at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Together, they considered the emerging findings from SCALS research alongside the Museum collections, and co-produced a temporary exhibition which provoked debate about the meaning of technology. The public engagement programme offered a novel way of considering the complexity of human and societal connections with technology, and led to new interpretations of the research - contextualising research into assistive living technology as part of wider human endeavours involving technology. A collaboration between the Interdisciplinary Research into Health Sciences Group at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and the Pitt Rivers Museum funded by the Wellcome Tr Language: en Genres: Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Introducing Messy Realities: the Secret Life of Technology
Tuesday, 12 November, 2019
Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and colleagues discuss what assistive living technologies are and how they engaged the public in exploring assistive living technologies at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and Dr Gemma Hughes discuss what assistive living technologies are and how they can be researched. They have a conversation which ranges from a Zimbabwean Bush Pump (referring to de Laet and Mol, 2002) to Trish’s elephant bike. They discuss symbolic and cultural meanings of assistive living technology, naturalistic and ethnographic methods for studying technologies-in-use and post-actor network theory. Gemma introduces Jozie Kettle and Beth McDougall from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford who explain how they involve the Museum Collections as catalysts for conversations with the public.