Wednesday, 14 June 2017 at 12:00 am – Wednesday, 14 June 2017 at 12:00 am
Rethinking Digital Health: Experience, Ethics, Justice
A ONE DAY WORKSHOP FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS AND EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS
14 June 2017
The Shed, Manchester Metropolitan University
Organisers: EJ Gonzalez-Polledo (Sheffield University), Adi Kuntsman (Manchester Metropolitan University), Esperanza Miyake (Manchester Metropolitan University)
The event is FREE but registration is required. Registration link coming soon!
In the recent years, with the increasing use of tele-communication, mobile devices, smartphone apps and self-tracking devices for medical purposes, ‘digital health’ has emerged as a field of interest for researchers in the social sciences and the humanities. At the centre of this small but rapidly growing area of interdisciplinary investigation are studies of websites and platforms for medical care providers and patients’ self-help forums; conceptual explorations of topics such as ‘digital embodiment’ or the ‘quantified self’; as well as explorations of digital health from the point of view of big data.
However, these approaches often overlook issues relating to under- or mis- represented groups in ‘digital’ economies, and often celebrate, rather than critically interrogate, the development of digital health itself. This workshop aims to challenge some of the unquestioned assumptions that guide researchers and practitioners of digital health alike. We ask instead: How might a focus on experience, ethics and justice contribute to critical digital health studies?
In this one-day workshop we invite submissions from postgraduate students and early career researchers in social sciences, social care, humanities and the arts, whose work deals with digital health. Our aim is to collectively raise questions that have not yet made their ways to the field of digital health. Suggested topics include:
- Overt and covert exclusions in digital health practices
- Marginalised and disenfranchised communities and digital health
- Race, racism and digital health
- Digitisation, health care and disability justice
- Ethics and politics of bio data/big data
In addition to presenting your own work, you will have the opportunity to discuss relations between digital media, research methods and critical health research in the masterclass ‘Chronic Media Worlds – Social media, epistemic justice and critical health politics’; and take part in an interactive workshop on ‘Opting out? Digital health and digital disengagement’.
Submission guidelines: please send a 300 word abstract and a short bio to rethinkingdigitalhealth@gmail.com by 1 May 2017.
Funding: a small number of bursaries is available to cover train travel within the UK (second class only.
Please indicate on your submission if you would like to be considered for the travel bursary).
All applicants will be informed of the outcome by 15 May.