Human, Non-Human, and Beyond: Cochlear Implants in Socio-Technological Environments

Abstract

The paper focuses on processes of normalization through which dis/ability is simultaneously produced in specific collectives, networks, and socio-technological systems that enable the construction of such demarcations. Our point of departure is the cochlear implant (CI), a neuroprosthetic device intended to replace and/or augment the function of the damaged inner ear. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sounds, the CI does the work of damaged hair cells in the inner ear by providing sound signals to the brain. We examine the processes of the CI's genesis as well as its specific uses by and interrelations to the different and divergent actors that the CI assembles. We argue that the technological device and the implicated normalization process mobilize complex effects in varying socio-technical arrangements. The CI is conceived as a Bboundary object^[89] or a Bquasi-object^[49, 83], i.e., a metastabilized medium of translation that coordinates social, cultural, and technological (inter)action. Although intended to transform non-hearing or hard of hearing people into competent and Bnormal^hearing subjects, the CI system reproduces the asymmetrical structures of the disability discourse [14] through its function of Bdeveloping and maintaining coherence between intersecting social worlds^ [89, 393]. Additionally, it initiates controversial discourses that have resulted in new forms of biosocial collectivities ranging from cochlear implantees with (restored) normal human hearing to (trans)human configurations who have passed through (post)human enhancement. Our approach is thus situated at the intersection of disability and media studies and tackles the particular conditions technological media configurations impose upon the (re-)production of dis/ability.

Who Will Be the Members of Society 5.0? Towards an Anthropology of Technologically Posthumanized Future Societies

“…The types of technologies that would give rise to an artificially augmented human being in the technologically posthumanized Society 5.0 involve the physical incorporation of a device into an individual's body; such devices include deep brain stimulation (DBS) implants (Kraemer 2011), retinal implants (Linsenmeier 2005;Weiland et al 2005;Viola and Patrinos 2007), and cochlear implants (Ochsner et al 2015), along with future visual cortical implants (Thanos et al 2007) and memory implants that build upon emerging technologies for memory modification (Han et al 2009;Josselyn 2010;Ramirez et al 2013). Such devices may be wirelessly networked and, to some extent, remotely controllable (Denning et al 2010;Clark and Fu 2012;Zheng et al 2014), thereby incorporating their human user into the Internet of Things.…”

The legal ambiguity of advanced assistive bionic prosthetics: Where to define the limits of ‘enhanced persons’ in medical treatment

“…a1 However, innovations in micro-and nano-chipping technology, as well as in CIDABPs, will inevitably lead us to these sorts of concerns-as is already been discussed in the field. [39][40][41][42][43] A reliance upon CIS-generated encryption software may not even yield in the sort of cybersecurity one would desire for highly-invasive (and potentially deadly if exploited) implants.…”

Rethinking Assistive Technologies: Users, Environments, Digital Media, and App-Practices of Hearing

“…In this mutual interplay, digital hearing devices do not function as mere tools, amplifiers, or restorative prostheses, but as mediators [8: p. 39] in operational processes in which bodily, cultural discourses and technical operations are meant not to artificially (re-)produce a preexisting "natural" or "normal" hearing but to enact new forms (and norms) of techno-mediated hearing experiences. The definition of hearing ability is thus to be described in relation to its socio-technical production [29]. We would like to ask in which ways the apparently infinite possibilities of customizable techno-mediated hearing experiences afford, on the one hand, new practices of hearing and acting, while demanding, on the other hand, a growing (self-)discipline and environmental control [30,31] to "successfully" cope with the demands of the digital devices?…”