The (Re-)Socialization of Technical Objects in Patient Networks

Abstract

In this paper an effort is made to describe the processes of technical stabilization of the epistemic thing cochlear implant in certain stabilized scientific environments and the way in which such stabilizations are fortified, discoursified and medially produced. Such technical stabilizations can only be accomplished by rigorously excluding attributes of the social. However, the cochlear implant is born out of the need to enable participation in “normal” social life and is thus a thoroughly social actor attributed with certain social attachments. With the translation into patient networks, the technical object cochlear implant is re-inscribed with attributes of the social and is thus subject to destabilization, remediatization and re-socialization again. Being transferred from the stabilized context of biological and medical science, the discourses of the cochlear implant are accumulated with elements of ethical or judicial discourses in which social issues are in the foreground. This will be illustrated by analyzing certain scientific viscourses and images which are used as illustrations for the successful communication between implanted children and their parents in practical guides for parents with deaf children.