The Making of Self-Monitoring Asthma-Patients: Mending a Split Reality with Comparative Ethnography

Henriette Langstrup, Brit Ross Winthereik

    Research output: Journal Article or Conference Article in JournalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    Those calling for more evidence to support ever-increasing efforts to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in medical work argue that rigorous facts are necessary to make viable in practice substantiated use of these technologies. By contrast, socio-technical studies researchers, who focus on the use of ICT in everyday clinical practices, argue against the need for evidence produced under controlled, thus "unrealistic" conditions. Proponents of both positions, however, seem to operate with "a split reality," whereby they assume the "pseudo" can be readily distinguished from the "real," the "situated" from the "scientific." A comparative ethnographic approach can help mend this split reality approach. We compare how the same internet-based self-monitoring tool for asthmatics was used in a general practice setting and in a randomized clinical study, and thereby show how different effects were produced in these two settings. We propose that these effects are better conceptualized as enacting different assemblages of bodies, identities, and technologies, as opposed to creating either evidence or failed implementation.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalComparative Sociology
    Volume7
    Issue number3
    Pages (from-to)362-386
    ISSN1569-1322
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2008

    Keywords

    • Information and Communication Technologies
    • Medical Work
    • Socio-Technical Studies
    • Ethnographic Approach
    • Self-Monitoring Tool
    • Clinical Practices
    • Evidence-Based Medicine
    • Assemblages
    • Randomized Clinical Study
    • General Practice

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