TELECARE STUDY: Post-place care disrupting place-care ontologies
Dara Ivanova is and academic researcher at Rotterdam Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management Health Care Governance (HCG)
Dara has a strong interest in theories of place and space, care, migration and the relationship between architecture and health. Her research interests also include the politics of science, ethnography, cities and urban health, globalization, post-socialism, informal and transition economies, and gender.
Dara's latest reasearch on the introduction of Sensiks' sensory reality technology into care organisations was published in sociology of health and illness
ABSTRACT
With the advent of telecare and the logic of information technologies in health care, the idea of placeless care has taken root, capturing imaginations and promising placeless caring futures. This ‘de-territorialisation of care’ has been challenged by studies of care practices ‘on the ground’, showing that care is always (materially) placed. Yet, while sociological scholarship has taken the role of place seriously, there is little conceptual attention for how we may think through immateriality and the changing nature of place in health care. Based on a case study of the introduction of a sensory reality technology into a care organisation, this paper argues that we need (1) to push the definition of placed care into new (digitally produced) landscapes and (2) a new vocabulary, with which to address and conceptualise this changing nature of care places.
The paper introduces the term post-place, as a first step in developing such a vocabulary. Post-place care, unlike the idea of placeless care or emplaced care, is an inclusive, open and generative concept. Its strength lies in its disruptive potential for challenging existing place-care ontologies and opening up productive space for thinking through the changing landscapes of health care
Method
The paper is based on qualitative interviews, document analysis and observations in the period between September and December 2018. Semi-structured formal interviews with the creator of the SRP and owner of Sensiks, neuroscientists at TNO involved in the Pod’s creation, an experience designer and IT support for Sensiks, the healthcare entrepreneur responsible for introducing the Pod into the Dutch healthcare market and managers in the healthcare organisation, where the Pod was introduced were conducted. More informal conversations with the Pod’s creator were held subsequently, which were followed by observations during three events, where he presented the Pod to a wider audience. Sensiks’s online presence, press interviews and releases, and promo videos were analysed.
The paper is based on qualitative interviews, document analysis and observations in the period between September and December 2018. Semi-structured formal interviews with the creator of the SRP and owner of Sensiks, neuroscientists at TNO involved in the Pod’s creation, an experience designer and IT support for Sensiks, the healthcare entrepreneur responsible for introducing the Pod into the Dutch healthcare market and managers in the healthcare organisation, where the Pod was introduced were conducted. More informal conversations with the Pod’s creator were held subsequently, which were followed by observations during three events, where he presented the Pod to a wider audience. Sensiks’s online presence, press interviews and releases, and promo videos were analysed.
Furthermore, I was provided with official reports and documents about the pilot testing of the Pod specifically for care. More document materials on the working of the Pod in health and other settings were analysed. My observations were mainly focused on the company’s work with clients and day-to-day activities, as my interest was in the production of the cabin and its content. This work was followed by observations of the Pod in a healthcare organisation, where I interviewed three managers about the incorporation of the cabin within their established care practices. Furthermore, I was able to experience the cabin myself, producing field notes through observations.
All data – interviews, documents, observation and experiential notes – were coded openly and grouped in themes. From the beginning of the research, the analysis was focused on place-making; my goal was to make a conceptual step in rethinking place in health care, which led me to collect data on the cabin’s material and technical set up and location, as opposed to its healing effects. The paper keeps a careful balance in assessing the Pod positively or negatively. As a controversial technology, various claims about its effects on health will come forward in the paper, yet my intention is to only use those in understanding how the Pod is a place for care, as opposed to if it works. In presenting the argument below, I first unravel the SRP as a layered place, answering the question where is place in this case? I then focus on how care is done through place, showing that the Pod is far from placeless. Finally, I argue that we need a different place-care vocabulary, with which to address the Pod’s new (digital, sensory, imagined) landscape of care. I thereafter introduce the concept post-place as a first step in building such a vocabulary.
About Dara:
Dara has a strong interest in theories of place and space, care, migration and the relationship between architecture and health. Her research interests also include the politics of science, ethnography, cities and urban health, globalization, post-socialism, informal and transition economies, and gender.
Dara Ivanova is an anthropologist and writer, who is interested in the history and interrelations between technology, society and science. She completed a bachelor’s degree in social sciences at the University College Roosevelt in Middelburg (summa cum laude) and received a Christiaan Huygens NUFFIC scholarship to continue her education with a two-year research master program at Utrecht University. During this time Dara did extensive fieldwork in Italy and Bulgaria, graduating cum laude from the program Cultural Anthropology: Sociocultural Transformations in 2013. The following year she began a PhD project on the relationship between place and care at Erasmus University. There, she taught, designed and coordinated various courses on both bachelor and master level, including philosophy of science, advanced qualitative research methods, governing healthy cities and comparative health policy, and supervised 15 master theses students.
Dara currently works as an assistant professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and has served as a member of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology between 2016 and 2020. She is also a member of the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture. Her research interests are the politics of science and care, the architecture of health, urban health and development, (the ethics of) healthcare technologies, migration and gender, as well research methodology and ethnographic methods in particular.
Dara Ivanova is an anthropologist and writer, who is interested in the history and interrelations between technology, society and science. She completed a bachelor’s degree in social sciences at the University College Roosevelt in Middelburg (summa cum laude) and received a Christiaan Huygens NUFFIC scholarship to continue her education with a two-year research master program at Utrecht University. During this time Dara did extensive fieldwork in Italy and Bulgaria, graduating cum laude from the program Cultural Anthropology: Sociocultural Transformations in 2013. The following year she began a PhD project on the relationship between place and care at Erasmus University. There, she taught, designed and coordinated various courses on both bachelor and master level, including philosophy of science, advanced qualitative research methods, governing healthy cities and comparative health policy, and supervised 15 master theses students. Dara currently works as an assistant professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and has served as a member of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology between 2016 and 2020. She is also a member of the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture. Her research interests are the politics of science and care, the architecture of health, urban health and development, (the ethics of) healthcare technologies, migration and gender, as well research methodology and ethnographic methods in particular.
Sources:
Sociology of Health & Illness - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.13100
Erasmus University Rotterdam - https://www.eur.nl/people/dara-ivanova
