M Ebeling (Drexel U), T Sharon (Radboud U), N Tempini (U of Exeter)
With the explosion of digital technologies that generate massive sets of personal data, from internet networks and big data infrastructures, to wearable devices and sensors, many actors see the analytical potentials of these collections for healthcare and medical research and knowledge production. These data circulate across domains, amongst different types of actors – e.g. academic scientists, corporations, non-profit organizations, individual data subjects, and patient groups – and according to different logics of exchange – e.g. donation, sharing, commodification, and appropriation (Ebeling 2016; Sharon 2018; Tempini & Teira 2019).
This track invites papers that explore the complex dynamics of the increasing circulation of health data. In particular we seek analyses asking not only how benefits are construed and by whom, and what harms may result, but also what frameworks currently exist for governing flows and what alternative frameworks might be imagined.
References
- Ebeling, Mary F.E. 2016. Healthcare and Big Data. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
- Sharon, Tamar. 2018. When Digital Health Meets Digital Capitalism, How Many Common Goods are at Stake? Big Data & Society, 5 (2) .
- Tempini, Niccolò, and David Teira. 2019. Is the Genie out of the Bottle? Digital Platforms and the Future of Clinical trials. Economy and Society, 48 (1): 77–106. DOI: 10.1080/03085147.2018.1547496.