Doctoral Dissertation Research: Everyday Prosthesis: Stories of Ampuation, Technology, and Body

这篇博士论文研究改进基金--由NSF的科学、技术和社会(STS)项目提供--支持对假肢使用者的日常体验和意义的研究。截肢者使用假体的形象激发了人们对现代性中身体和机器之间的相似之处的思考，但学者们还没有探索这些想法是否会在截肢者的实际经历中得到证实。本研究收集截肢后康复和康复的故事和反思，以阐述用假肢比喻人类与技术的关系和人类的意义的理论。该项目询问医疗程序和辅助技术如何影响关于身体和自我的想法，然后将这些见解应用于技术研究、残疾研究和生物伦理学问题。数据是通过对过去6年内开始使用假肢的人进行的50次深度采访的形式收集的。为了记录一系列的经历，将采访不同群体的截肢者，包括男性和女性，以及那些因创伤和疾病而失去肢体的人。对这些叙述的介绍和分析将集中在截肢者如何解释他们的身体和假肢，以及这些解释如何反映或重新发明关于身体的流行思想。最后的论文论文和相关出版物将对截肢和康复的不同描述进行文学贡献。医学和康复学者以及截肢者和他们的家人应该会对这一结果感兴趣。此外，论文还将探讨截肢和使用假肢的经历如何影响STS关于身体、自我和残疾的理论。

This Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant--by the Science, Technology & Society (STS) program at NSF--supports research on the everyday experiences and meanings of prosthetics to the people who use them. The image of an amputee using a prosthetic body part has inspired much thought about the parallels between bodies and machines in modernity, but scholars have yet to explore if these ideas are borne out in the actual experiences of amputees. This dissertation research collects stories of and reflections on recovery and rehabilitation after amputation in order to elaborate on theories that employ prosthesis as a metaphor for human relations with technology and the meaning of being human. The project asks how medical procedure and assistive technology can influence ideas about the body and the self and then apply these insights to issues in technology studies, disability studies, and bioethics. Data are collected in the form of 50 in-depth interviews with people who began using an artificial limb in the last 6 years. To capture a range of experiences, a diverse group of amputees will be interviewed, including men and women and those who have lost limbs due to trauma and disease. The presentation and analysis of these narratives will focus on how amputees come to interpret their bodies and prosthetic limbs and how these interpretations reflect or reinvent popular thinking about the body. The final dissertation thesis and related publications will contribute to the literature a varied account of amputation and recovery. The results should be of interest to scholars of medicine and rehabilitation, as well as to amputees and their families. Further, the dissertation will explore how the experience of amputation and use of prostheses can inform STS theories about body, self, and disability.