Description:
Health technology is a term frequently used to denote the “application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives.” (http://www.who.int/topics/technology_medical/en/).
From the point of view of fields of study such as medical technology, there is a focus on the technological invention, design, application and functioning of both the units of health technological systems, as well as the articulation of different units and devices. From the perspective of social studies, health technologies can be studied and seen as the expert systems that not only cure diseases and improve human life, but also as the forms of reasoning in culture about the healthy human. The intersections of technological perspectives with social and cultural perspectives on health systems bring about interesting insights into how different types of health and medical technologies are being understood when leaving the arena of health experts and entering the field of the public, every day users.
This course has as an objective to invite students working with different types of health technologies —sport technologies, medical technologies, health economic technologies, patient-focused technologies, etc.— to explore their research projects in the light of current sociological and anthropological discussions of the workings and effects of health expert systems in culture and society.
The course is directed to all those students at the faculty whose projects include looking at the intersections of the technologies with “the human” in society and culture. The course will be an interdisciplinary space to explore different theoretical takes on the issue. It will allow students to think about the historical, economic, cultural and political conditions of health technologies in current societies.
Organizer: Professor Paola Valero
Lecturers: To be announced
ECTS: 2.5
Time: 5-7 November, 2014
Place: Aalborg University
Zip code: 9220
City: Aalborg
Number of seats: 20
Deadline: 15 October,2014
- Teacher: Paola Ximena Valero Dueñas
- Teacher: Paola Valero