6 episodes

Discussing public engagement in research into assistive living technologies. The podcast series comprises conversations between health services researchers, Museum experts and community members on wide-ranging topics relating to assistive living technologies including living with disability, ageing, conservation and ethics.

Studies in Co-Creating Assisted Living Solutions (SCALS) is a five-year research programme (2015-2020) funded by Wellcome and led by Professor Trisha Greenhalgh of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University. SCALS examines technology-driven or supported improvements in different health and social care organisational setting.
Whilst hopes are high that technology can improve health, the reality of technology-in-use is often messy, with unintended consequences. The lives of older people with several medical conditions and social needs are often complex and evolve over time. Technologies designed to help these people often fit awkwardly into their lives, there is often a mismatch between the way people actually use assisted living technologies to help them live at home and their intended use.

The Messy Realities project brought health services researchers, museum facilitators and community partners together at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Together, they considered the emerging findings from SCALS research alongside the Museum collections, and co-produced a temporary exhibition which provoked debate about the meaning of technology. The public engagement programme offered a novel way of considering the complexity of human and societal connections with technology, and led to new interpretations of the research - contextualising research into assistive living technology as part of wider human endeavours involving technology. A collaboration between the Interdisciplinary Research into Health Sciences Group at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and the Pitt Rivers Museum funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Messy Realities - the Secret Life of Technology Oxford University

    • Education

Discussing public engagement in research into assistive living technologies. The podcast series comprises conversations between health services researchers, Museum experts and community members on wide-ranging topics relating to assistive living technologies including living with disability, ageing, conservation and ethics.

Studies in Co-Creating Assisted Living Solutions (SCALS) is a five-year research programme (2015-2020) funded by Wellcome and led by Professor Trisha Greenhalgh of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University. SCALS examines technology-driven or supported improvements in different health and social care organisational setting.
Whilst hopes are high that technology can improve health, the reality of technology-in-use is often messy, with unintended consequences. The lives of older people with several medical conditions and social needs are often complex and evolve over time. Technologies designed to help these people often fit awkwardly into their lives, there is often a mismatch between the way people actually use assisted living technologies to help them live at home and their intended use.

The Messy Realities project brought health services researchers, museum facilitators and community partners together at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Together, they considered the emerging findings from SCALS research alongside the Museum collections, and co-produced a temporary exhibition which provoked debate about the meaning of technology. The public engagement programme offered a novel way of considering the complexity of human and societal connections with technology, and led to new interpretations of the research - contextualising research into assistive living technology as part of wider human endeavours involving technology. A collaboration between the Interdisciplinary Research into Health Sciences Group at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and the Pitt Rivers Museum funded by the Wellcome Trust.

    See-touch-think-wonder

    See-touch-think-wonder

    Stories, objects and pictures as methods of engagement in research in assistive living technologies. Gemma Hughes, Joe Wherton and Beth McDougall discuss methods to engage people in research; visual and tactile methods, stories and story-boards, and co-production. The team counsel that some engagement activities don’t always go according to plan, and advise on being prepared to allow engagement to unfold in sometimes unanticipated ways.

    • 36 min
    Technology, aging and progression: from amulets to robots

    Technology, aging and progression: from amulets to robots

    Discussions about the protective powers of amulets, alarms and jewellery are interrupted by the arrival of a cuddly robot. Researchers, Museum facilitators and community members discuss the concerns of using technology to support ageing populations. Dr George Leeson of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing introduces the group to Paro, a therapeutic robot, created by Professor Takanori Shibata.

    • 42 min
    Living objects - ageing bodies

    Living objects - ageing bodies

    Researchers and community members go behind the scenes at the Pitt Rivers Museum to learn more about the care and ethics involved in conservation. Museum conservators, Jem and Andrew, provide insights into their work which illuminate new ways of understanding the complex nature of the Museum collections as living objects. Discussion about how objects are made to last, or to decay and what it means to preserve objects in the context of the museum sparks conversations about movement and stillness at the end of life.

    • 43 min
    Technologies: love or hate them?

    Technologies: love or hate them?

    The context of the Pitt Rivers Museum stimulates discussion about human-technology relations. Gemma Hughes asks Dr Laura van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, about the unique nature of the Museum. Dr Sara Shaw describes the differences between Utopian discourses of technology and the ways in which people relate to technology in everyday life, and Dr Joe Wherton talks about his research into the use of GPS tracking devices by people with dementia.

    • 43 min
    The magic of everyday technologies

    The magic of everyday technologies

    Exploring how everyday objects support health and wellbeing: medicines containers and mobility aids. Researchers, community members and Museum facilitators explore technologies and artefacts from the Museum collections in conversation about how people personalise, adapt and make things work for them. Discussions encompass: faith and trust in medicines; visible disabilities and hidden needs; identity, aesthetics and ideas of objects telling stories about their originating environments.

    • 47 min
    Introducing Messy Realities: the Secret Life of Technology

    Introducing Messy Realities: the Secret Life of Technology

    Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and colleagues discuss what assistive living technologies are and how they engaged the public in exploring assistive living technologies at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and Dr Gemma Hughes discuss what assistive living technologies are and how they can be researched. They have a conversation which ranges from a Zimbabwean Bush Pump (referring to de Laet and Mol, 2002) to Trish’s elephant bike. They discuss symbolic and cultural meanings of assistive living technology, naturalistic and ethnographic methods for studying technologies-in-use and post-actor network theory. Gemma introduces Jozie Kettle and Beth McDougall from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford who explain how they involve the Museum Collections as catalysts for conversations with the public.

    • 43 min

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