Project NAU - A Critical Assessment of New Aalborg University-Hospital

Dichmann, Rune Ehlert Nedergaard

4. term

Techno-Anthropology, Master

2018

2018-06-01

76 pages

This thesis concerns a case study the project: New Aalborg University-Hospital (NAU). Through this thesis, I seek to uncover the agency of said project, in perspective of people with in the contexts of neighbors to NAU, neighbors to Aalborg University-Hospital South (AUS), employees of AUS and employees of Aalborg University-Hospital North. Hereto, I employ the philosophy of science, Agential Realism, coined by Karen Barad. Which functions as the platform, on which I perform my investigation. I compliment this philosophy with the frameworks of Critical Theory of Technology (CTT), as coined by Andrew Feenberg, and Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), as coined by Wiebe Bijker and Trevor Pinch, which functions as my analytical tools. The first analysis concerns the development model of NAU, to which I employ the framework of CTT. The second analysis is in three parts: The first part concerns how the technological frame of is constructed. The second part concerns the stability of these constructions. The third part concerns the relation between the technological frame and the socio-cultural context. Hereto, the framework of SCOT is employed. I conclude that the agency of NAU’s development model, in the perspective of my participants, is one of technocratic control, more than democratic communication, and that this power relation, to the majority of my participants, entails discomfort in the form of powerlessness and carelessness. I also conclude that the agency of NAU is multi-stable, consisting of both stable and unstable equilibrium points. As such, the agency of NAU is constructed as positive, negative and in-between among and within the different socio-cultural contexts of my participants.

Nyt Aalborg Universitetshospital ; New Aalborg University-Hospital ; NAU

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