Global Diabetes Encounters: Acounting for Health Technologies in the Global

TY - CHAP

T1 - Global Diabetes Encounters

T2 - Acounting for Health Technologies in the Global

AU - Juul Nielsen, Annegrete

AU - Langstrup, Henriette

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - As already recognized, though little theorized within International Relations, the capacity of technology to ensure the achievement of preset policy goals is often grossly overrated. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, this chapter proposes a lens to investigate global encounters, which take the technologies, involved in such encounters seriously both analytically and methodologically. This approach provides the opportunity not only to see how technology plays an important part in shaping global encounters and gets shaped itself in the process. It also allows us to appreciate the complex and productive nature of the friction these encounters produce. The proposed lens is used to analyze a specific global encounter illustrative of the way in which technologies increasingly become central to global encounters concerning health. In this encounter Danish and Indonesian partners are engaged in implementing a Danish developed quality assurance software for diabetes management in Indonesian primary care. We analyze what is at stake for the partners and what role the technology plays in shaping these stakes. The analysis points to the ambiguous and often contentious nature of technology in global encounters. The challenges met as the technology moves from Danish health care to an Indonesian context cannot be explained with reference to generalizing notions such as structural barriers, local culture or stakeholder interests. Instead attention to the frictions of global encounters provides insights to the conditions for and effects of movement of health technologies across geographical borders and thus to research at the intersection of Global Health and International Relations.

AB - As already recognized, though little theorized within International Relations, the capacity of technology to ensure the achievement of preset policy goals is often grossly overrated. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, this chapter proposes a lens to investigate global encounters, which take the technologies, involved in such encounters seriously both analytically and methodologically. This approach provides the opportunity not only to see how technology plays an important part in shaping global encounters and gets shaped itself in the process. It also allows us to appreciate the complex and productive nature of the friction these encounters produce. The proposed lens is used to analyze a specific global encounter illustrative of the way in which technologies increasingly become central to global encounters concerning health. In this encounter Danish and Indonesian partners are engaged in implementing a Danish developed quality assurance software for diabetes management in Indonesian primary care. We analyze what is at stake for the partners and what role the technology plays in shaping these stakes. The analysis points to the ambiguous and often contentious nature of technology in global encounters. The challenges met as the technology moves from Danish health care to an Indonesian context cannot be explained with reference to generalizing notions such as structural barriers, local culture or stakeholder interests. Instead attention to the frictions of global encounters provides insights to the conditions for and effects of movement of health technologies across geographical borders and thus to research at the intersection of Global Health and International Relations.

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-3-642-55009-6

VL - 2

SP - 235

EP - 251

BT - The Global Politics of Science and Technolgy

A2 - Mayer, Maximilian

A2 - Carpes, Mariana

A2 - Knoblich, Ruth

PB - Springer

ER -