Anna Harris | Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Books by Anna Harris

Online genetic testing services are increasingly being offered to consumers who are becoming expo... more Online genetic testing services are increasingly being offered to consumers who are becoming exposed to, and knowledgeable about, new kinds of genetic technologies, as the launch of a 23andme genetic testing product in the UK testifies. Genetic research breakthroughs, cheek swabbing forensic pathologists and celebrities discovering their ancestral roots are littered throughout the North American, European and Australasian media landscapes. Genetic testing is now capturing the attention, and imagination, of hundreds of thousands of people who can not only buy genetic tests online, but can also go online to find relatives, share their results with strangers, sign up for personal DNA-based musical scores, and take part in research. This book critically examines this market of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing from a social science perspective, asking, what happens when genetics goes online?

With a focus on genetic testing for disease, the book is about the new social arrangements which emerge when a traditionally clinical practice (genetic testing) is taken into new spaces (the internet). It examines the intersections of new genetics and new media by drawing from three different fields: internet studies; the sociology of health; and science and technology studies.

While there has been a surge of research activity concerning DTC genetic testing, particularly in sociology, ethics and law, this is the first scholarly monograph on the topic, and the first book which brings together the social study of genetics and the social study of digital technologies. This book thus not only offers a new overview of this field, but also offers a unique contribution by attending to the digital, and by drawing upon empirical examples from our own research of DTC genetic testing websites (using online methods) and in-depth interviews in the United Kingdom with people using healthcare services.

Centre for Health and Society, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne: ISBN no. 9780734047700, 2012

Bibliographic entries by Anna Harris

Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology, 2016

Embodiment is a concept in constant motion, threading through swaths of literature from anthropol... more Embodiment is a concept in constant motion, threading through swaths of literature from anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and, more recently, neuroscience. Although the concept becomes different things in different places, broadly speaking in anthropology, embodiment is a way of describing porous, visceral, felt, enlivened bodily experiences, in and with inhabited worlds. While anthropology has long had bodily concerns at its heart, issues of embodiment really became a central concept and object of study only in the mid-1980s, in the midst of a more general philosophical trend in the humanities and social sciences. A move was made here from studies of the body to taking the perspective of a bodily being-in-the-world as the starting point. Anthropological engagements with embodiment have several characteristics, which distinguish them from other fields of study. First, theoretical understandings of embodiment are stitched not only from bringing together and critically examining a key set of philosophies (predominantly phenomenology and practice theory), but also doing so in correspondence with insights from ethnographic fieldwork. This theoretical approach has developed largely in opposition to Western dualisms and stagnate bodily categories, emphasizing process and contingency. For many first tackling embodiment head-on, their concern was to address questions of power and oppression through looking at ideologies of sex, gender, and racial difference. Medical anthropologists further developed the concept in their studies of illness. Topics now have now expanded greatly, including new approaches to traditional themes and emerging concerns about the virtual, the (epi)genetic, toxic environments and beyond-human bodies. Anthropology is also characterized by embodied fieldwork, where the researcher’s body is recognized as being deeply entangled in the process of study. The selection of texts in this article, chosen from a vast and growing body of literature, reflects both embodied anthropology and anthropologies of embodiment. It includes works by authors who have contributed to these areas in substantial ways through methodological reflections, ethnographic cases, and/or theoretical developments. The texts highlight not only how arbitrary it is to separate theories from fieldwork and methods from findings, but also nature/culture, mind/body, reason/emotion, inner/outer, self/other, and many other binaries that anthropologists continually seek to problematize, stitch together, and pull apart in their study of the elusive yet captivating questions of embodiment.

Papers by Anna Harris

For centuries, those training doctors have been faced with the challenges of standardising subjec... more For centuries, those training doctors have been faced with the challenges of standardising subjective experiences and constructing "the universal body" in learning situations. Various technologies have been introduced to address these challenges, with varying degrees of success. In this article we focus on the stethoscope, specifi cally the electrical and digital stethoscope models. Historical and social studies of medicine have already underlined the so-ciomateriality of learning in medicine. In this article we underscore the per

The craftsperson’s workshop, the academic workshop – how comparable are they? Historically, craft... more The craftsperson’s workshop, the academic workshop – how comparable are they? Historically, craft workshops have been sites of sustained cooperation, imbued with elaborate social rituals and hierarchies, and are considered places of experimentation. Through close engagement with materials, tools, places, and other bodies, the body itself is acknowledged as a ‘learning’ and ‘knowing’ entity (Sennett 2008). Academic workshops, similarly, have rituals and hierarchies, and aspire to be experimental venues. Framed as cerebral affairs, however, their embodied dimension is far subtler and easier to overlook. This video essay focuses on an academic workshop that took place in Maastricht, in the Netherlands, in July 2018. The workshop focused on teaching and learning, particularly attending to how learning is related to the environment in which we learn, how materials and sensorality influences the development of embodied skills, and how technologies and global contexts shape learning. Over four days, 40 participants – all academics or practitioners – ran or participated in panel discussions, movement and object exercises, practical workshops, and a public event which delved into this topic, exploring how it related to their academic work. The main venue choice was very specific – a hotel school completely staffed by hospitality students. We learned alongside them. It was, in some sense, a skillshare workshop. We took seriously the assertion that making and performing are also acts of thinking, and that meaning is created and expressed in multiple modes (Kress 2010, Brown and Banks 2014, Kullman 2014); the workshop was inherently interactive, often using experiments and exercises to structure dialogue in creative ways, and involved contributions from makers and other practitioners. This video essay uses closely-observed insights which emerged from the video of the event, to consider what this workshop on learning and embodiment offers to thinking about the nature of the academic workshop more broadly, and its potential relationship to the kinds of craft workshops Sennett describes. It speaks in conversation with literature which recognises a relationship between bodies, environments, and materials in knowing about the world (eg. Pink 2017, Lave 2019, Ingold 2013) also drawing on literature which explores the nature of how we gather (Parker 2019). It adds new insights through exploring three themes from the small group workshops that aren’t always prominent in the literature – that are perhaps difficult to explicate in words – framing the workshop as a place of learning and apprenticeship: fumbling, traces of places, and the tactile-digital. Through reference to these themes, the videos link academic experimentation and embodied learning. And while these themes all emerge in the literature above, the video component reveals the extent to which we found them to be entangled – bodies with places, with materials, with digital landscapes. This palimpsest of interactions, and how they are inter-related, is difficult to recognise in a written treatment.

This paper explores the material histories which influence contemporary medical education. Using ... more This paper explores the material histories which influence contemporary medical education. Using two obstetric simulators found in the distinct teaching environments of the University of Development Studies in the north of Ghana and Maastricht University in the south of the Netherlands, this paper deconstructs the material conditions which shape current practice in order to emphasise the past practices that remain relevant, yet often invisible, in modern medicine. Building on conceptual ideas drawn from STS and the productive tensions which emerge from close collaboration between historians and anthropologists, we argue that the pull of past practice can be understood as a form of friction, where historical practices 'stick' to modern materialities. We argue that the labour required for the translation of material conditions across both time and space is expressly relevant for the ongoing use and future development of medical technologies.

Sensory ethnographers deploy methods such as drawing, video and photography in order to examine t... more Sensory ethnographers deploy methods such as drawing, video and photography in order to examine the more ineffable and non-representational aspects of practices. Usually, these studies are conducted by individual researchers who deal only with their own material. What happens when a team of ethnographers explores questions of a sensory or non-representational nature? How do they share their findings not only with their audiences, but also with each other? Team ethnography is becoming increasingly common across the social sciences and humanities, yet to date there has been little attention paid to the important work of communicating findings within a group. To explore this further, we conducted a methodological 'proof of concept' study, observing and documenting people learning to make omelettes. We found that sensory methods have a role not only in studying practices but crucially, in also facilitating a form of immersion into the ethnographic practices and imaginations of others within the team. In the end, we suggest that experiments with sensory methods, such as through proof of concept methodological studies, are useful for thinking about how teams of social scientists work together, whether their research deals with sensory topics or not.

Introduction Creativity and improvisation are recognized as important aspects of training experti... more Introduction
Creativity and improvisation are recognized as important aspects of training expertise in domains such as business and the arts, yet rarely discussed in medical education. This article examines how creativity and improvisation play out in the ways teachers give ‘expressive instructions’ to medical students when teaching physical skills.

Methods
Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in a medical school in Maastricht, the Netherlands, with first, second and third year students learning physical examination skills. Over 230 h of fieldwork was conducted in the Skills Lab, including 34 tutorials of 1.5 h duration, with 11 different teachers and over 500 students. Patterns found in the fieldnotes were thematically analyzed using an inductive approach, drawing on sociological theories of craftsmanship.

Results
Findings showed that teachers improvise beyond the standardized lesson structure and classroom set-up, giving what we call, drawing on sociological theory, ‘expressive instructions’. This was visible in two main ways: 1) by teachers using their own bodies; 2) by teachers using materials that came to hand.

Discussion
This research highlights the important yet underexplored role of creativity and improvisation in teaching physical skills. Creativity and improvisation appear to be particularly important when training expertise in skills that are difficult to articulate and thus require expressive instructions, due for example to their sensory nature. Focusing on how expressive instructions play out in medical education offers insights into the tacit components of expertise development, a process which builds upon a long period of teachers’ skilled practice.

“Ninety-nine, ninety-nine, niiinetee-niiine.” For centuries, English-speaking doctors the world o... more “Ninety-nine, ninety-nine, niiinetee-niiine.” For centuries, English-speaking doctors the world over have been taught this magical number. Doctors learn and teach how to ask patients to repeat the number over and over and over again while feeling/listening for tactile vocal fremitus and whispered pectoriloquy. Few, however, question the reasons for 99, assuming the singsong-like nature of the phrase has some relevant sonic qualities.

Introduction: There has been little qualitative research examining how physical examination skill... more Introduction: There has been little qualitative research examining how physical examination skills are learned, particularly the sensory and subjective aspects of learning. The authors set out to study how medical students are taught and learn the skills of listening to sound.

Methods: As part of an ethnographic study in Melbourne, 15 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with students and teachers as a way to reflect explicitly on their learning and teaching.

Results: From these interviews, we found that learning the skills of listening to lung sounds was frequently difficult for students, with many experiencing awkwardness, uncertainty, pressure, and intimidation. However not everyone found this process difficult. Often those who had studied music reported finding it easier to be attentive to the frequency and rhythm of body sounds and find ways to describe them.

Conclusions: By incorporating, distinctively in medical education, theoretical insights into “attentiveness” from anthropology and science and technology studies, the article suggests that musical education provides medical students with skills in sensory awareness. Training the senses is a critical aspect of diagnosis that needs to be better addressed in medical education. Practical approaches for improving students’ education of attention are proposed.

The growing abundance of medical technologies has led to lament over doctors’ sensory de-skilling... more The growing abundance of medical technologies has led to lament over doctors’ sensory de-skilling, technologies viewed as replacing diagnosis based on sensory acumen. The technique of percussion has become emblematic of the kinds of skills considered lost. While disappearing from wards, percussion is still taught in medical schools. By ethnographically following how percussion is taught to and learned by students, this paper considers the kinds of bodies configured through this multisensory practice. I suggest that three kinds of bodies arise: skilled bodies; affected bodies; and resonating bodies. As these bodies are crafted, I argue that boundaries between bodies of novices and bodies they learn from blur. Attending to an overlooked dimension of bodily configurations in medicine, self-perception, I show that learning percussion functions not only to perpetuate diagnostic craft skills but also as a way of knowing of, and through, the resource always at hand; one’s own living breathing body.

Recipes are filled with sensory directions related to taste, appearance, texture, and smell, but ... more Recipes are filled with sensory directions related to taste, appearance, texture, and smell, but less often to the sounds of food cooking. While cooking and eating, whether at home or in a restaurant, is recognized as a sonic experience, we are rarely specifically instructed to “listen in.” Some scholars argue that such skills cannot be written into recipes, but rather must be passed on in practice. While I largely agree with this claim, I was challenged to find exceptions in cookbooks. In this essay, I discuss some of the few but delightful examples of sonic instruction in recipes. I conclude that while sounds are rare in cookbooks, as these examples show, listening is a skill that provides valuable information in the kitchen.

Sensory experiences are often considered triggers of memory, most famously a little French cake d... more Sensory experiences are often considered triggers of memory, most famously a little French cake dipped in lime blossom tea. Sense memory can also be evoked in public history research through techniques of elicitation. In this article I reflect on different social science methods for eliciting sound memories such as the use of sonic prompts, emplaced interviewing, and sound walks. I include examples from my research of medical listening. The article considers the relevance of this work for the conduct of oral histories, arguing that such methods “break the frame,” allowing room for collaborative research connections and insights into the otherwise unarticulatable.

Since the early 19th century blackboard teaching has been an important practice in medical school... more Since the early 19th century blackboard teaching has been an important practice in medical schools, building on the work of celebrated artistic anatomists such as London’s Charles Bell.1 I was lucky enough to be taught by another great blackboard anatomist, Peter Lisowski ...

Articulating how to enact a sensory skill is a challenging prospect, as illustrated through the t... more Articulating how to enact a sensory skill is a challenging prospect, as illustrated through the teaching and learning of novices. This article examines strategies employed to overcome the challenges of sharing sensory experience by exploring how medical professionals learn and teach skills of listening to sound: that is, of teaching medical students, and of medical students learning, sonic skills. The article draws on ethnographic research conducted in medical schools and hospitals in Australia and The Netherlands and on historical research conducted in medical archives and libraries in France, the UK and the US, from the 1950s until present. The first part of the paper focuses on the key, often creative, solutions our participants constructed for sharing their knowledge of body sounds, and techniques for its analysis. These didactic solutions are organized in three sections: demonstration; mimicry and repetition; and rhythm and improvisation. We argue that no one strategy leads to the enskillment of novices in listening, but rather, that through the co-ordination of practices of learning and teaching there is an attempt to obtain “sonic alignment”. The second part of the article extends our study of sharing sounds by examining how researchers learn about sonic skills from research participants. Looking at the proposed methodological solutions to the conundrum of how to share audible experience, we reflect on our own ethnographic and historical techniques to attempt sonic alignment with those we study. By integrating into our analysis how we, as researchers, enacted our research material, we understand more about how life we study is enacted too.

Background In Norway, boys with hemophilia usually begin treatment after their first bleeding ep... more Background

In Norway, boys with hemophilia usually begin treatment after their first bleeding episode. Boys with severe hemophilia usually start prophylactic treatment around 18–24 months. Health professionals administer factor concentrate initially, but when boys are around 4 years old most parents start treating their children at home. There is a lack of research on how parents, and especially how carrier mothers, experience the medical treatment for their sons’ hemophilia. Our aim was to investigate how carrier mothers experience this treatment in the hospital setting and at home.
Methods

In this qualitative study, we interviewed 16 mothers of boys or men with hemophilia A or B. Data were collected via semistructured interviews and analyzed using an inductive thematic analytical approach.
Results

Mothers experienced both practical and emotional challenges in relation to their sons' treatment, and repeated venipuncture was especially difficult emotionally. Parents preferred home treatment to hospital treatment because it was less time-consuming, less disruptive to family life, and provided a greater sense of control. Encountering healthcare professionals who were unfamiliar with hemophilia was a second major stress factor, especially when parents felt that health professionals lacked competence and were unwilling to seek advice.
Conclusion

While home treatment for hemophilia enables freedom, flexibility, and autonomy for the boys as well as for the family, mothers may experience treatment of hemophilia as a burden. Health professionals should provide tailored practical and emotional support to parents by probing into their experiences with treating their sons' hemophilia.

Scientifi c controversy is increasingly played out via the internet, a technology that is simulta... more Scientifi c controversy is increasingly played out via the internet, a technology that is simultaneously content, medium and research infrastructure. Here we analyse material from Wikipedia, focusing on schizophrenia genetics. We fi nd that citation and curation of scientifi c resources follow a negotiated, ad hoc adherence to Wikipedia rules, are based on limited access to scientifi c literature, and thus lead to a partially constructed 'review' of the science that excludes non-professionals. Given its policies and systems for developing neutral, evidence-based articles, one would not expect to fi nd controversy on Wikipedia, yet we fi nd traces. Scientifi c ambiguity about schizophrenia genetics lends itself to multiple ways of curating resources, and the infrastructure of online spaces enables the practices behind curation work to become visible in new ways. We argue that not only does Wikipedia make scientifi c controversy visible to a wider range of people, it is also involved in the production of knowledge.

Eä – Journal of Medical Humanities & Social Studies of Science and Technology, 2016

In this article we put forward " autobiology " as a concept for understanding how individuals mak... more In this article we put forward " autobiology " as a concept for understanding how individuals make sense of their bodies and biologies, using information gleaned from medical devices and tests that are administered outside of clinical settings. We provide examples of direct-to-consumer genetic testing, home pregnancy kits, and the quantified-self movement. We argue that " autobiology " provides a valuable counterpoint to " biosociality ". Autobiology captures people's sometimes playful engagements with these health technologies, and their greater entanglement with corporate interests through the ways in which people provide data for subsequent use by companies. We examine how new technologies provide people with information, and also how they use digital technologies to tell their stories, via YouTube for example. In the final section, we explore the possibilities for using auto/biographical methods for exploring people's changing relationships with medical devices.

Centre for Health and Society, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne: ISBN no. 9780734047700, 2012

Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology, 2016

Methods: As part of an ethnographic study in Melbourne, 15 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with students and teachers as a way to reflect explicitly on their learning and teaching.

Background In Norway, boys with hemophilia usually begin treatment after their first bleeding ep... more Background

Eä – Journal of Medical Humanities & Social Studies of Science and Technology, 2016

Little is known about the experiences of women with Fabry disease. The aim of this study was to e... more Little is known about the experiences of women with Fabry disease. The aim of this study was to explore women’s experiences of being heterozygous for Fabry disease. We used an explorative qualitative study design and selected ten Norwegian women who were known heterozygous for Fabry disease to participate. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews and analyzed the interviews using inductive thematic analysis. We found that learning about one’s heterozygous status may be devastating for some. However, for most of the participants, heterozygous status, as well as doctors’ acceptance of symptoms in women heterozygous for Fabry disease, provided an explanation and relief. Although many women did not consider themselves ill, they wished to be acknowledged as more than “just carriers.” The participants were grateful for enzyme replacement therapy, although it had its burdens regarding time, planning, and absences from school or work. Women with Fabry disease felt that the lack of knowledge among healthcare professionals about Fabry disease was frustrating and worrisome. These findings suggest that healthcare professionals should acknowledge the different ways women react to their diagnosis, and be aware of the personal costs of receiving treatment.

Despite a growing personal genomics market, little is known about how people engage with the poss... more Despite a growing personal genomics market, little is known about how people engage with the possibilities offered by direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing. In order to help address this gap, this study deploys narrative analysis of YouTube videos posted by individuals who have purchased DTC genetic testing for disease. Genetic testing is said to be contributing to new states of illness, where individuals may become “patients-in-waiting.” In the videos analyzed, we found a new form of storytelling about this ambiguous state of illness, which we refer to as autobiology. Autobiology – the study of, and story about, one's own biology – concerns narratives of sense-making through forms of biological practice, as well as wayfaring narratives which interweave genetic markers and family histories of disease. These autobiologies – part of a broader shift toward public stories about genetics and other healthcare technologies – exhibit playfulness, as well as being bound with consumerist practices.

"Self-reported data are regarded by medical researchers as invalid and less reliable than data pr... more "Self-reported data are regarded by medical researchers as invalid and less reliable than data produced by experts in clinical settings, yet individuals can increasingly contribute personal information to medical research through a variety of online platforms. In this article we examine this ‘participatory turn’ in healthcare research, which claims to challenge conventional delineations of what is valid and reliable for medical practice, by using aggregated self-reported experiences from patients and ‘pre-patients’ via the internet. We focus on 23andMe, a genetic testing company that collects genetic material and self-reported information about disease from its customers. Integral to this research method are relations of trust embedded in the information exchange: trust in customers’ data; trust between researchers/company and research subjects; trust in genetics; trust in the machine. We examine the performative dimension of these trust relations, drawing on Shapin and Schaffer’s (1985) discussion of how material, literary and social technologies are used in research in order to establish trust.
Our scepticism of the company’s motives for building trust with the self-reporting consumer forces us to consider our own motives. How does the use of customer data for research purposes by 23andMe differ from the research practices of social scientists, especially those who also study digital traces? By interrogating the use of self-reported data in the genetic testing context, we examine our ethical responsibilities in studying the digital selves of others using internet methods. How researchers trust data, how participants trust researchers, and how technologies are trusted are all important considerations in studying the social life of digital data."

People can now send a sample of their saliva to an internet-based company in order to discover ge... more People can now send a sample of their saliva to an internet-based company in order to discover genetic information about themselves. Entering this ‘direct-to-consumer’ genetic testing (DTC GT) marketplace can result in enticement to engage in various forms of ‘participatory’ practices, such as taking part in genetic research. In this article, we analyse the research activities of one of the largest and best-known DTC GT companies, 23andMe. 23andMe research is based on what they term ‘participant-led’ research methodologies, which utilize a combination of consumers’ genetic information and self-reported data in the form of completed online surveys. Our analysis shows that 23andMe presents research participation as a form of gift exchange, implying some kind of social bond. Social ties between the consumer-participant and 23andMe are integral to the company's ‘novel’ research agenda which relies on the ongoing aggregation of data from a loyal re-contactable cohort. We argue that the notion of gift exchange is used to draw attention away from the free, clinical labour which drives the profitability of 23andMe. We offer an account of a particular form of online research participation which differs from other kinds of participatory medical research. As medical research becomes increasingly driven by large data sets and internet-based research methods, we offer a timely analysis of emerging participatory practices.

Postcards carry one world into another, just like ethnography (Pandian and McLean 2017). Their la... more Postcards carry one world into another, just like ethnography (Pandian and McLean 2017). Their layered materiality-the chocolate stains and pen smudges, curled corners, fluorescent barcodes, spots faded from sun exposure, and, of course, the stamps-carry traces not only of trips through postboxes, sorting machines, and airplanes but also of other, imagined worlds. During the collaborative, comparative, historic-ethnographic project, Making Clinical Sense (www.makingclinicalsense.com), members of the research team based in cities in Ghana, Hungary, and the Netherlands wrote postcards to each other. The postcards documented observations, ideas, dilemmas, puzzles, and everyday happenings. They could only ever be thumbnail sketches-a moment or thought caught, a question that arose or a short greeting. But as we have learned in our project, from studying how doctors learn physical examination skills, there is a world of information in a thumbnail.

Cultural Praxis, 2020

It started with a blurry little cherry tomato catching the overhead light during a video call. It... more It started with a blurry little cherry tomato catching the overhead light during a video call. It did so in such a way that it gave the tomato two eyes. My dad (John) was holding the tomato to the screen, keeping my three year-old (Bastian) amused with fruits and vegetables that were lying on the kitchen table nearby.

Cultural Anthropology, 2020

Digital learning could imply hands-on learning, a physical engagement of bodies and fingers (digi... more Digital learning could imply hands-on learning, a physical engagement of bodies and fingers (digits) finding out how to do something. But mostly it implies, particularly during a pandemic, education online, a learning practice which seems to almost excise the body from the encounter ....

During a presentation I gave on training the senses with dance dramaturge Peggy Olislaegers in Ma... more During a presentation I gave on training the senses with dance dramaturge Peggy Olislaegers in Maastricht recently, I conducted a little experiment for people to try and articulate sensations. I distributed cards on a table and asked the audience to smell vials from a wine tasting smell kit. The reactions to the scents were fascinating. Some of the vials incited almost the same word in most responders. Almost everyone identified the scent officially described as “pear” for example, as “pear”. Another scent highlighted the difficulties of finding the right word. Officially described as “toast”, this little vial evoked responses that varied from popcorn and Dorito chips, to smelly feet and dirty socks.

In this post for the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, Anna Harris, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Su... more In this post for the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, Anna Harris, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Supper, Joeri Bruyninckx and Melissa van Drie document and reflect upon a ‘sonic dinner’ we hosted in early 2015. Each of the participants, most of us sound scholars, translated a particular sonic memory, story or observation into an edible and audible dish. These dishes evoked places which we have inhabited and relate to in different ways: countries we grew up in but no longer live in; cities we’ve made our homes in recent times; sites we’ve visited as tourists; or locations where we’ve spent time as ethnographers. In the process of ‘transducing’ these place memories into a dish, we addressed recipes in different ways: by meticulously following written instructions or intuitively following auditory cues; by learning instructions from family members in a step-by-step process over the years or reconstructing dishes from different written sources. All of these dishes used sound as a starting point but led to multisensory experiences and performances on the night that, with this contribution, we will translate into yet another format: a multivocal, multisensory and multimedia menu of stories.

Somatosphere, 2015

One doctor, seven medical students and an anthropologist crowd into the patient's very small hosp... more One doctor, seven medical students and an anthropologist crowd into the patient's very small hospital room. The doctor places his briefcase next to the bed, introduces himself to the patient and turns to his students. Whose turn to do a respiratory examination?

Sociology of Diagnosis website, 2015

Historicizing Infrastructure , 2017

In the last few decades infrastructures have become increasingly visible in the social sciences, ... more In the last few decades infrastructures have become increasingly visible in the social sciences, following a much longer engagement by historians. Recent anthropological work on infrastructure often adopts a practice-orientated approach, which focuses on the ways in which they are shaped through entangled material and social relations. In this paper I argue that such an approach can be strengthened by attention to the sensory and imaginative dimensions of infrastructure, which helps to articulate the vibrancy and fragility of such sociomaterial assemblages. I do so in order to suggest new methodological directions for the history of infrastructure. In order to illustrate my argument I use the case study of an infrastructure which once existed through large technical systems under city streets, and now is constructed on much smaller scales in buildings such as hospitals; pneumatic tube systems. Pneumatic tube systems highlight the durability of infrastructures over time. They are used nowadays to move materials which cannot be uploaded, scanned or printed; materials which come with traces of the personal, whether this is a piece of human tissue or trash. Following the practices of pneumatic tube systems ethnographically highlights the multisensory nature of infrastructures, which refuse to stay buried and quiet. Focusing particularly on sound, I look at examples of how sounds and listening practices signal infrastructures working smoothly as well as moments of breakdown and blockage. Working with infrastructures entails sonic skills, which becomes part of professional practice. I suggest that as well as making infrastructures more visible in our historical and anthropological engagements, we should also make them more audible. Often we tend to attribute sensory qualities to nature rather than technologies. Attending to the sensory dimensions of infrastructure however helps to understand more about their temporality and affects, which forwards our understanding of the role of infrastructural technologies in the modernization of society. In making this methodological plea, I suggest that sensory methods have as much relevance for historical studies as for the social sciences where they are more commonly used, and that both anthropology and history can learn from working closely alongside each other in their studies of the infrastructural arrangements of social life.

The sheer quantity of qualitative data that researchers can find online increases every day. In t... more The sheer quantity of qualitative data that researchers can find online increases every day. In this chapter Anna Harris addresses ethical challenges of using this online material for research, principally images. She introduces how researchers have used found images online and the ethical issues already highlighted in the literature, before discussing her collaborative study of YouTube videos made by users of online genetic testing services. In this chapter Harris discusses ethical dilemmas she and her collaborators faced when engaging with this video material, their solutions and unresolved concerns. The discussion covers topics of borderless research, ownership of data, confidentiality and obtaining consent. As internet-based research escalates, and online encounters pervade everyday life, these are issues of importance to researchers, ethics committees and the broader public.

Department, Maastricht University. Her research focuses on questions of sensorality, embodiment, ... more Department, Maastricht University. Her research focuses on questions of sensorality, embodiment, learning, and the social study of medicine. a.harris@maastrichtuniversity.nl Is it important, or even possible, to archive the sensory? To collect, preserve, keep sensory experience? Not only the words and descriptions of what is heard-felt-smelttasted-seen, but the sensations themselves? Not only to catalogue and store, but also to retrieve. And why would anyone want to do such a thing? What can be learned from attempts in sensory archiving? These age-old questions are raised beautifully and anew in a series of recent exhibitions and events at Marres House for Contemporary Culture,

As I write this review, I keep the fanning pages of Tom Rice’s wonderful book, Hearing and the Ho... more As I write this review, I keep the fanning pages of Tom Rice’s wonderful book, Hearing and the Hospital, open with my old stethoscope. It’s looking a little tatty now, my stethoscope that is. The smooth plastic tubing (carefully chosen burgundy) has started to wear away, leaving black marks and grimy dust collects in available crevices. These are traces of hospitals past and medical work in a previous career. As Rice discusses in his book, the stethoscope can become for medical students and doctors an autobiographical object, around which memories and associations are made, turning into “a storied instrument” (p89) ...

Centre for Medical Humanities, Jul 2014

A doctor must be observant to notice their patients’ murmurs. They have to listen carefully, noti... more A doctor must be observant to notice their patients’ murmurs. They have to listen carefully, notice small details, be attentive to differences and change, and most important of all, take time to contemplate the faintly audible whisperings of what might be wrong. In his new book, the late Cecil Helman shows that it is not only with the stethoscope that the doctor needs to listen to murmurs, but also in the stories their patients tell them, in the faint whispers of illness hidden in words, bodies, movement, clothes and tattoos. An Amazing Murmur of the Heart: Feeling the Patient’s Beat is a collection of this doctor and anthropologist’s close observations of his patients and life in medicine. If there was a collective noun for these narratives, I would steal that of the starlings. This is a murmuration of tales, which gather and dip and dive throughout the book, to reveal something quite beautiful...

Having recently finished watching the first season of Forbrydelsen (The Killing) I know something... more Having recently finished watching the first season of Forbrydelsen (The Killing) I know something about Scandinavian knitwear. As the protagonist of this Danish TV thriller, Sarah Lund, doggedly solves a murder case, she is continuously huddling into a thick, cosy, snowflake sweater (there is even a website dedicated to this knitted garment). The traditional Scandinavian sweater is a useful image to have in mind when reading My Beautiful Genome: Exposing our Genetic Future, One Quirk at a Time, the most recent book by Danish science journalist Lone Frank, for it becomes a central metaphor within her argument.

""In this thesis I ethnographically examine overseas doctors’ negotiations of hospital settings t... more ""In this thesis I ethnographically examine overseas doctors’ negotiations of hospital settings that are similar, yet simultaneously unfamiliar, to those they have previously known. The study foregrounds the social labour involved in moving medical practices from one clinical context to another, a process too often hidden from view in the myth of medical universalism.

The stories take place in hospitals on the metropolitan fringes of a large city in Australia. The research assumes that doctors with overseas (i.e. non-Australian/New Zealand) medical qualifications have developed a different set of practices to ‘locals’ because they have received their education and training in medical places ‘elsewhere’. In the thesis, I argue that overseas doctors negotiate these various differences with modes of adjustment. I examine adjustment as an embodied, sensory and situated process that entails constant threading between the overseas doctors’ past and the environment they find themselves part of, revealing something of both along the way. The overseas doctors’ new environment is one that includes an evolving arrangement of people and paperwork, registration and assessment procedures, and buildings and tools. Whilst adjustment to these human and non-human aspects of a doctor’s ecological terrain is an everyday event in medicine, I suggest that it is made more obvious by international migration, by practitioners who do not take their new environments for granted.

For overseas doctors, subtle variation can mean an exciting, yet more often unsettling world of difference. This research highlights the contextual nature of medical practice, exploring its embeddedness within a multifarious environment. At the same time, the thesis departs from the majority of literature on overseas doctors, and skilled migrants more generally, that regards their skills as too context specific, thus requiring their integration into a nationally distinct system through the acquisition of nationally distinct practices. With this thesis I contribute an empirically and theoretically rich analysis that provides a more nuanced perspective of this political issue in Australia (and other ‘receiving countries’). It is a thesis that will be of interest to migration and organisational researchers, medical educationalists, sociologists and anthropologists of science and medicine, individuals and organisations concerned with the steadily growing number of overseas doctors working in hospitals around the world, and last, but not least, overseas doctors themselves.""

In this thesis I examine issues raised by works of contemporary art that depict the anatomically ... more In this thesis I examine issues raised by works of contemporary art that depict the anatomically dissected body. In recent centuries representations of the anatomical body have become synonymous with the medical body. This analysis of contemporary artworks reclaiming the trope of the anatomical body thus allows room for critical reflection on the culturally constructed nature of the modern medical body. Discussion centers around three pieces in particular: Body Worlds, an exhibition of plastinated corpses by Gunther von Hagens; Hymn, an enlarged dissected torso sculpture by Damien Hirst; and Science of the Heart, a video installation by Bill Viola incorporating a projection of a surgically dissected heart. In each chapter I explore how the artwork reveals, reflects, reproduces and contests current conceptualisations of the medical body, often in problematic ways. Issues of commodification, gender and technology are examined through detailed textual analysis of each artwork, the discussion drawing upon a range of critical theories including postmodern, feminist and phenomenological theory. The thesis acknowledges the dialectic between medicine and art surfacing from the artworks and aims to extend this into the medical humanities by recognising the pieces as engaged and potentially powerful critical discourses on the state of the body in medical culture today.

"In a country that claims to be calling out for skilled migrants, our cities are filled with doct... more "In a country that claims to be calling out for skilled migrants, our cities are filled with doctors struggling to navigate a difficult and complex registration system to have their medical qualifications recognised.

This process needs to be changed, for the benefit of the doctors and our healthcare system.

SSRN, 2011

Health, especially the lack of it, raises questions not only about diagnosis and treatment but al... more Health, especially the lack of it, raises questions not only about diagnosis and treatment but also about trust: in one’s body and its responses, in individual health care professionals and informal care givers, in medical knowledge and in health care systems. Digital technologies affect all of these with the growing use of self-monitoring and diagnostics as well as easier availability of professional medical journals via the internet and online fora for patients to discuss their experiences of everything from drug reactions to doctors’ skills to hospital car parking facilities. Drawing on ongoing research about online direct-to-consumer genetic testing, this paper examines the ways in which digital technologies reconfigure trust relationships between people, their bodies, codified and experiential knowledge, and the techno-bureaucratic systems which shape these relationships.

Anna Harris | Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (original) (raw)

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