Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Cochlear Implantation: Exploring Technoscience and Designs on Citizenship

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Technoscience and Citizenship: Ethics and Governance in the Digital Society

Part of the book series: The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology ((ELTE,volume 17))

  • 464 Accesses

Abstract

Around the globe more than 350,000 citizens live with a sophisticated hearing aid device called Cochlear Implant. In many countries CI is an institutionalized medical procedure for restoring deafened with a technological sense of hearing but the social challenges for users is a largely unexplored issue. Addressing this social dimension, the article explores how Cochlear Implant works as a boundary object between social worlds and how it carries designs on citizenship. Designs on citizenship is not only an issue of unexpected forms of Deaf resistance. On a more substantial level, designs on citizenship concerns the way Cochlear Implant intersects with different social worlds. In specific, the articles explores the world of medical knowledge in conjunction with the social world of users. As new forms of living with technoscience is actively negotiated in the social world of usage, we may understand technoscience to carry designs on citizenship by opening up new places of belonging.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The following images are from the published annual reports (editorial) and can be accessed on the homepage of Cochlear Limited: http://www.cochlear.com/wps/wcm/connect/intl/about/investor/annual-reports/annual-reports. From top left: Annual Report 2013, Annual Report 2012; Annual Report 2011; Annual Report 2010. From Bottom Left: Annual Report 2009; Annual Report 2008; Annual Report 2007; Annual Report 2006.

  2. 2.

    Only two of these are comprehensive inquiries into the experience of using CI: One uses an open-ended questionnaire, the other assessment makes use of grounded theory (Hallberg et al. 2004). Both assessments assert that CI has a good impact on the quality of life.

  3. 3.

    E.g. see also Krabbe, P.F., J.B. Hinderink, and P. Van den Broek. 2000; Grøntved, Aksel Møller et al (2006).

  4. 4.

    The following paragraph is based on interviews with five post-lingual adult CI users used in a MA thesis (Jepsen 2008).

  5. 5.

    Jepsen 2008: 43.

  6. 6.

    Jepsen 2008: 56.

  7. 7.

    Jepsen 2008: 79.

  8. 8.

    Jepsen 2008: 59.

  9. 9.

    Jepsen 2008: 58.

  10. 10.

    Jepsen 2008: 96 (appendix 2).

  11. 11.

    Jepsen 2008: 59.

  12. 12.

    Lane 2005.

References

  • Blume, S. 1997. The rhetoric and counter-rhetoric of a “bionic” technology. Science, Technology & Human Values 22(1): 31–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blume, S. 2000. Land of hope and glory: Exploring cochlear implantation in the Netherlands. Science, Technology & Human Values 25(2): 139–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blume, S. 2010. The artificial ear: Cochlear implants and the culture of deafness. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, January 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, G. 2000. Sounds from silence – The bionic Ear story. Australia: Allan & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, G. 2003. Cochlear implants: Fundamentals & applications. New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, G. 2006. The multiple-channel cochlear implant: The interface between sound and the central nervous system for hearing, speech, and language in deaf people—A personal perspective. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 361: 791–810.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, A., and S.L. Star. 2008. The social worlds framework: A theory/methods package. In The handbook of science and technology studies, ed. E.J. Hackett, O. Amsterdamska, M. Lynch, and J. Wajcman, 113–137. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faber, C., and A. Grøntved. 2000. Cochlear implantation and change in quality of life. Acta Oto-Laryngolica. Supplementum 543: 151–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Finlay, L. and P. Molano-Fisher 2008. Transforming’ self and world: A phenomenological study of a changing lifeworld following a cochlear implant. Medicine Health Care and Philosophy 11(3): 255–267.

    Google Scholar 

  • Groce, N. 1988. Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grøntved, A. et al. 2006. Cochlear implantation in deaf adults: Effect on quality of life. Co-authored with Jens Højberg Wanscher, and Christian Emil Faber. Ugeskrift for læger 168/33, Videnskab og Praksis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta, A., and A. Sharma. 2006. Globalization and postcolonial states. Current Anthropology 47(2): 277–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallberg, L. et al. 2004. Living with cochlear implant: Experience of 17 adult users in Sweden. Co-authored with Anders Ringdahl. International Journal of Audiology 43: 115–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. 1991a. A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In Simians, cyborg and women, Free Association Books LTD 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. 1991b. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and privilege of partial perspective. In Simians, cyborg and, women, Free Association Books LTD 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, J. 1995. The cultural meaning of deafness. England: Avebury Ashgate Publishing Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. 2003. Technologies of humility: Citizen participation in governing science. Minerva 41: 223–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. 2004. The idiom of co-production. In States of knowledges – The co-production of science and social order, ed. S. Jasanoff. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jepsen, K. 2008. Doing sociological research and travelling boundaries of cochlear implantation – To learn from experienced people using CI how a sense is actively shaped. Unpublished MA-dissertation, Lancaster University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krabbe, P.F., J.B. Hinderink, and P. Van den Broek. 2000. The effect of cochlear implant use in postlingually deaf adults. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care 16(3): 864–873.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lane, Harlan. 2005. Ethnicity, ethics, and the deaf world. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 10(3): 291–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lassaletta, Luis et al. 2006. Quality of life in postlingually deaf patients following cochlear implantation. Co-authored with Alejandro Castro, Marta Bastarrica, Maria Jose´ de Sarria´, and Javier Gavila´n. European Archives Oto-Rhino-Laryngology 263: 267–270.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, N. 2002. Reconsidering cochlear implant: The lesson of Martha’s Vineyard. Bioethics 16(22).

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, T. 2005. Beyond the state and failed schemes. American Anthropologist 107(3): 383–394.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Association of the Deaf. 1993. Cochlear implants in children. Position Statement from 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rebeharisoa, V., and M. Callon. 2004. Patients and scientists in French muscular dystrophy research. In States of knowledges – The co-production of science and social order, ed. S. Jasanoff, Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N., and C. Novas. 2008. Biological citizenship. In Global assemblages: Technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems, ed. A. Ong and S.J. Collier, 439–469. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheppard, E. 2002. The places and times of globalization: Place, scale, networks and positionality. Economic Geography 78(3): 307–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siims, Birthe. 2013. Citizenship. In The Oxford handbook of gender and politics, ed. Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola, and S. Laurel Weldon, 1–18. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Star, S., and J.R. Griesemer. 1989. Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science 19: 387–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tarabichi, M.B. et al. 2008. Deafness in the developing world: The place of cochlear implantation. Co-authored with C Todd, Z Khan, X Ýang, and B Shehzad. The Journal of Laryngology and Otology.

    Google Scholar 

  • The European Group on Ethics, EGE. 2005. The ethical aspects of ICT implants in the human body. Luxenburg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trouillet, M-R. 2001. The anthropology of the state in the age of globalization. Current Anthropology 42(1): 125-138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Visvanathan, S. 2005. Knowledge, justice and democracy. In Science and citizens: Globalization and the challenge of engagement, ed. M. Leach, I. Scoones, B. Wynne. Zed Books Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welsh, I., and B. Wynne. 2013. Science, scientism and imaginaries of publics in the UK: Passive objects, incipient threats. Science as Culture 22(4): 540–566.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wickson, F., A. Delgado, and K. Kjølberg. 2010. Who or what is the public? Nature Nanotechnology 5: 757–758.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wynne, Brian. 2006. Public engagement as a means of restoring public trust in science hitting the notes, but missing the music? Community Genetics 9(3): 211–220.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Kim Sune Jepsen

Authors
  1. Kim Sune Jepsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kim Sune Jepsen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Ana Delgado

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Jepsen, K.S. (2016). Cochlear Implantation: Exploring Technoscience and Designs on Citizenship. In: Delgado, A. (eds) Technoscience and Citizenship: Ethics and Governance in the Digital Society. The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32414-2_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation