Rehabilitation technology and the reproduction of bodily normality: a critical analysis of robotic gait training in Turkey
By: Dikmen Bezmez and Sibel Yardımcı
Abstract
This paper focuses on rehabilitation technology, more specifically robotic gait training conducted with a device called ‘Lokomat’ and its impact on the reproduction of bodily normality within the Turkish context. It draws upon an ethnographic study carried out in a major Turkish rehabilitation hospital and the analysis of the Lokomat's media representation in a health-related television programme. Interviews were conducted with 42 persons (11 medical staff, 2 non-medical staff, and 20 current and 9 former patients). The paper argues that the use of technology is shaped by the relevant sociocultural background. This background comprises both the specificities of the Turkish context more generally – such as its especially unwelcoming environment to the disabled body – and the discourses on the Lokomat more specifically, which create a miracle image of this device as facilitating walking. Thus, the Lokomat's presence deepens the normal/abnormal divide and reproduces it as walking/non-walking.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15017419.2015.1114964 | Journal eISSN: 1745-3011
Language: English
Page range: 343 - 353
Submitted on: Apr 17, 2015
Accepted on: Oct 27, 2015
Published on: Nov 4, 2016
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2016 Dikmen Bezmez, Sibel Yardımcı, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.