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- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
This work explores the dynamics in emergence, deployment, and execution of modern technoscientific initiatives in the U.S. government. I focus on the federal initiative that developed vaccine and other responses to the Covid-19 crisis. This included federal policy mechanisms used during crisis, political and financial risk in federal technoscientific solutions, and conditions for technoscientific solutions success. The focus on these dynamics during crisis response is an approach to understanding overarching governance of technoscientific initiatives in non-crisis times. The process of exploration includes a series of interviews with senior officials engaged in technoscientific initiative development. Two studies governed by the tenets of the Delphi approach were completed, one in 2020 with senior government officials engaged in Operation Warp Speed, and another in 2021 with former senior government officials involved in government-funded technoscientific initiatives including the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the National Manufacturing Initiative, and the Precision Medicine Initiative. These results were coded and then the data were triangulated and corroborated through the use of public media, follow up interviews, and fact-checking in the local Washington, D.C. policy network. This work reveals a series of theoretical, policy, and practical results. The theoretical contributions include that high profile technoscientific initiatives are undertheorized in Innovation Policy and Science and Technology Studies. This work also establishes an early typology of U.S. government technoscientific initiatives. In addition, this work suggests policy and practical contributions regarding federal responses to emerging crises, as well as lessons from crisis-intervention policies that might be useful without crises.
ContributorsArnold, Amanda J (Author) / Ross, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Cook-Deegan, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Hurlbut, J. Ben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Over the last half century, global healthcare practices have increasingly relied on technological interventions for the detection, prevention, and treatment of disability and disease. As these technologies become routinized and normalized into medicine, the social and political dimensions require substantial consideration. Such consideration is particularly critical in the context of ableism, in which bodily and cognitive differences such as disabilities are perceived as deviance and demand intervention. Further, neoliberalism, with its overwhelming tendency to privatize and individualize, creates conditions under which social systems abdicate responsibility for social issues such as ableism, shifting accountability onto individuals to prevent or mitigate difference through individualized means.
It is in this context that this dissertation, informed by critical disability studies and feminist science and technology studies, examines the understanding and enactment of disability and responsibility in relation to biomedical technologies. I draw from qualitative empirical data from three distinct case studies, each focused on a different biomedical technology: prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis, deep brain stimulation, and do-it-yourself artificial pancreas systems. Analyzing semi-structured interviews and primary documents through an inductive framework that takes up elements of Grounded Theory and hermeneutic phenomenology, this research demonstrates a series of tensions. As disability becomes increasingly associated with discrete biological characteristics and medical professionals claim a growing authority over disabled bodyminds, users of these technologies are caught in a double bind of personal responsibility and epistemic invalidation. Technologies, however, do not occupy either exclusively oppressive or liberatory roles. Rather, they are used with full acknowledgement of their role in perpetuating medical authority and neoliberal paradigms as well as their individual benefit. Experiential and embodied knowledge, particular when in tension with clinical knowledge, is invalidated as a transgression of expert authority. To reject these invalidations, communities cohering around subaltern knowledges emerge in resistance to the mismatched priorities and expectations of medical authority, creating space for alternative disabled imaginaries.
It is in this context that this dissertation, informed by critical disability studies and feminist science and technology studies, examines the understanding and enactment of disability and responsibility in relation to biomedical technologies. I draw from qualitative empirical data from three distinct case studies, each focused on a different biomedical technology: prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis, deep brain stimulation, and do-it-yourself artificial pancreas systems. Analyzing semi-structured interviews and primary documents through an inductive framework that takes up elements of Grounded Theory and hermeneutic phenomenology, this research demonstrates a series of tensions. As disability becomes increasingly associated with discrete biological characteristics and medical professionals claim a growing authority over disabled bodyminds, users of these technologies are caught in a double bind of personal responsibility and epistemic invalidation. Technologies, however, do not occupy either exclusively oppressive or liberatory roles. Rather, they are used with full acknowledgement of their role in perpetuating medical authority and neoliberal paradigms as well as their individual benefit. Experiential and embodied knowledge, particular when in tension with clinical knowledge, is invalidated as a transgression of expert authority. To reject these invalidations, communities cohering around subaltern knowledges emerge in resistance to the mismatched priorities and expectations of medical authority, creating space for alternative disabled imaginaries.
ContributorsMonteleone, Rebecca (Author) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Heather (Committee member) / Frow, Emma (Committee member) / Michael, Katina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The goal of this project was to create a quasi experimental study using an education module that teaches evidence-based practice methods. The theoretical frameworks used to create the educational content were the self-efficacy theory and the Health Belief Model. The evaluation methods used are based on the Kirkpatrick four level model. An education module was created to be culturally and regionally relevant to South Sudan and Malawi. The education module was designed to be part of the SolarSPELL Health: Nursing and Midwifery Library. This was done by performing a literature review, curating resources, creating the educational materials, creating learning scenarios, curating relevant belief scales, and integrating the content into the SolarSPELL Health: Nursing and Midwifery Library. The on ground implementation of the materials was not a part of this project, but instead is planned for future research. This project creates a foundation from which SolarSPELL Health can implement the resources at a future date. In the long term, the goal of implementing the experiment is to improve maternal mental and physical health outcomes in South Sudan and Malawi, both of which have extremely high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity.
ContributorsRaymond, Courtney (Author) / Ross, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Hosman, Laura (Committee member) / Pepin, Susan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
This research aims to serve as a starting point to the exploration of the current status of autism in Sudan and how to best utilize available Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to educate and support parents and educators. Currently, there is no official published data on the prevalence of autism in Sudan or the related available services and facilities. To attempt to expand upon the limited existing knowledge, the researcher collected all available data and information through Sudanese Facebook groups and pages. The research was observational in nature. Findings indicated that raising a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Sudan can be rather challenging, particularly for parents who do not have easy access to ASD treatment. In general, parents in this study expressed minimal satisfaction with the available treatments and services that their children were receiving. Parents repeatedly addressed problems regarding a lack of access, the overwhelming expense, and the need for more awareness and acceptance of autism within Sudanese society. In response to these issues, some of the parents formed small support groups and met regularly to share experiences and discuss solutions. Additionally, some parents are creating discrete Facebook pages to help normalize autism and combat misinformation.
ContributorsSalim, Sulafa (Author) / Parmentier, Mary Jane (Thesis advisor) / Hussain, Faheem (Committee member) / Ross, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019