Kathryn Allan, ed. Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 217 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-137-34342-0. Reviewed by Coreen McGuire (University of Leeds) Published on H-Disability (July, 2017) Commissioned by Iain C. Hutchison, 2017
Book Review for H NET Reviews
Coreen McGuire. Review of Allan, Kathryn, ed., Disability in Scie... more Book Review for H NET Reviews
Coreen McGuire. Review of Allan, Kathryn, ed., Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. July, 2017.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=49883
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broad framework aligns with a global focus, and this breadth reveals how science happens outside of traditional testing arenas. Testing hearing takes place not in laboratories but in laundromats, on streets, in submarines, studios, stages, and societies.
with chronic respiratory disease, obesity, heart disease
and anxiety disorders. The Multidimensional Dyspnoea
Profile is a respiratory questionnaire which attempts to
measure the incommunicable different sensory qualities
(and emotional responses) of breathlessness. Drawing
on sensorial anthropology we take as our object of
study the process of turning sensations into symptoms.
We consider how shared cultural templates of ’what
counts as a symptom’ evolve, mediate and feed into
the process of bodily sensations becoming a symptom.
Our contribution to the field of sensorial anthropology,
as an interdisciplinary collaboration between history,
anthropology and the medical humanities, is to provide
a critique of how biomedicine and cultures of clinical
research have measured the multidimensional sensorial
aspects of breathlessness. Using cognitive interviews
of respiratory questionnaires with participants from the
Breathe Easy groups in the UK, we give examples of
how the wording used to describe sensations is often at
odds with the language those living with breathlessness
understand or use. They struggle to comprehend and
map their bodily experience of sensations associated
with breathlessness to the words on the respiratory
questionnaire. We reflect on the alignment between
cognitive interviewing as a method and anthropology
as a disciplinary approach. We argue biomedicine brings
with it a set of cultural assumptions about what it
means to measure (and know) the sensorial breathless body in the context of the respiratory clinic (clinical
research). We suggest the mismatch between the
descriptions (and confusion) of those responding to the
respiratory questionnaire items and those selecting the
vocabularies in designing it may be symptomatic of a
type of historical testimonial epistemic injustice, founded
on the prioritisation of clinical expertise over expertise by
experience.
Book Reviews
Coreen McGuire. Review of Allan, Kathryn, ed., Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. July, 2017.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=49883
broad framework aligns with a global focus, and this breadth reveals how science happens outside of traditional testing arenas. Testing hearing takes place not in laboratories but in laundromats, on streets, in submarines, studios, stages, and societies.
with chronic respiratory disease, obesity, heart disease
and anxiety disorders. The Multidimensional Dyspnoea
Profile is a respiratory questionnaire which attempts to
measure the incommunicable different sensory qualities
(and emotional responses) of breathlessness. Drawing
on sensorial anthropology we take as our object of
study the process of turning sensations into symptoms.
We consider how shared cultural templates of ’what
counts as a symptom’ evolve, mediate and feed into
the process of bodily sensations becoming a symptom.
Our contribution to the field of sensorial anthropology,
as an interdisciplinary collaboration between history,
anthropology and the medical humanities, is to provide
a critique of how biomedicine and cultures of clinical
research have measured the multidimensional sensorial
aspects of breathlessness. Using cognitive interviews
of respiratory questionnaires with participants from the
Breathe Easy groups in the UK, we give examples of
how the wording used to describe sensations is often at
odds with the language those living with breathlessness
understand or use. They struggle to comprehend and
map their bodily experience of sensations associated
with breathlessness to the words on the respiratory
questionnaire. We reflect on the alignment between
cognitive interviewing as a method and anthropology
as a disciplinary approach. We argue biomedicine brings
with it a set of cultural assumptions about what it
means to measure (and know) the sensorial breathless body in the context of the respiratory clinic (clinical
research). We suggest the mismatch between the
descriptions (and confusion) of those responding to the
respiratory questionnaire items and those selecting the
vocabularies in designing it may be symptomatic of a
type of historical testimonial epistemic injustice, founded
on the prioritisation of clinical expertise over expertise by
experience.
Coreen McGuire. Review of Allan, Kathryn, ed., Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. July, 2017.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=49883