The (Re-)Socialization of Technical Objects in Patient Networks: The Case of the Cochlear Implant

Introduction

One of the central questions of techno-social and philosophical studies of science related to knowledge transfer is how knowledge acts “if it leaves its laboratory context and is adapted into science and society” (Hoof et al., 2011, p.7, trans. MS). Already when objects of knowledge (epistemic things) are assembled, which are the objects of the research process (cf. Rheinberger, 1997, p.28), they are marked and stabilized as either scientific or social things in relation to specific medial environments and discursive practices (cf. Lösch et al., 2001, p.7). Technical objects can also be discursively marked and used as social or scientific objects at which specific epistemes of the social or of science and the specific environments to which they are related reciprocally condition each other. If one considers “technical objects” as “technical things” as defined by Rheinberger (1997) or as Latourian “Black Boxes” (1999) whose stability significantly consists of their technical and medial conditions, one may one the one hand inquire about the processes of stabilization of such technical objects and fields of knowledge and on the other hand about the “[…] interfaces between different kinds of fields of knowledge and the processes of transformation, which knowledge experiences while passing through these different fields of knowledge” (Hoof et al., 2011, p.7, trans. MS). Such processes of transformation are the object of investigation of this paper. However in this case an effort is made to describe transformations of fields of knowledge / discourses on the basis of a specific example: The (re-)socialization of the otolaryngological-technical object cochlear implant (CI).

As an acoustic prosthesis for hearing impaired, the CI was developed to function as a means of eliminating social hardships. The need for the development of an implant for the improvement of the physiological hearing is based on the discourses on psychosocial, emotional or pedagogical disadvantage of hearing impaired (cf. Hermann-Röttgen, 2010; Arndt, 2010, p.3) and thus discoursified as “social”. During the process of its technical stabilization in an experimental system the implant is translated from an uncertain, vaguely defined and partially contradictory epistemic thing into a well defined technical thing, a technical component or device (cf. Rheinberger, 1997, pp. 28-29).

During the process of stabilization, the epistemic thing is isolated from the aforementioned inscriptions of the social, which is conditioned by the stabilized environment of the corresponding experimental system (particular disciplinary traditions, discourses, viscourses¹ and other stabilized technical objects). Not until the translation, the enrolement, the re-habilitation or re-socialization in patient networks (cf. Callon, 1986), the technical object CI is inscribed with attributes of the social again. In the case of the CI, such a “transfer of knowledge” (from scientific context to a social context) caused “otolaryngological controversies” (cf. Hodges et al., 2001, pp.417-433), which is a result of the destabilization of the technical object during its retranslation into the state of an epistemic thing.

The premise of this paper is thus, that the technical object is subject to production or inscription at any given time. It is subject to constant processes of translation, which, in relation to the experimental environment, become manifest in specific processes of mediation producing and reproducing certain discourses or viscourses. The same applies for attributions to and demarcations of disabled / normal and deaf / hearing.

In order to exemplify such processes, scientific-medicinal and popularized representations of the ear as well as representations of successful communication in guidebooks for parents with deaf children will be analyzed.