Global ETD Search

1	The singular case of SARS : medical microbiology and the vanishing of multifactorality Attenborough, Frederick Thomas January 2010 (has links) This thesis is about the politics and the possibilities of aetiology. Firstly, the possibilities. Does an infectious disease have one, single pathogenic cause or many, interacting causes? In the medical microbiological sciences, there is no definitive answer, one way or another, to this question: there, the conditions of aetiological possibility exist in a curious tension. Ever since the birth of the 'germ theory of disease' and the concomitant birth of the singular aetiological object, these conditions have allowed for the co-existence of a very different, and far less well understood kind of object: the multifactorial object. That SARS was caused by one, singular viral agent, a coronavirus (CoV), is now entrenched as microbiological fact. And yet, the curious thing about SARS is that the history of the 2003 outbreak is littered with moments at which the possibility of the multifactorial object presented itself to, and was actively considered by, medical microbiologists. So how did we get here - to SARS-CoV, an infectious disease that could be understood and storied in this, the most singular of ways? And what happened along the way to deny the multifactorial aetiological object any kind of existence at all? In an attempt to grapple with these questions, the thesis seeks to recover the possibility of the multifactorial object through a deep, ethnomethodological reading of the moments at which it flared up precise/y as a possibility for medical microbiologists investigating the outbreak. What emerges from that recovery operation is a sense that the multifactorial object was never actually ruled out or disproved in any way, but rather, was vanished. Put another way, the suggestion is that various medical microbiological practices and interventions, whilst establishing singularity, were serving, at the same time, to create an illusion of multifactorality's non-existence; an illusion behind which the issue of multifactorality, its possibility, could be discarded without ever having to be resolved, one way or the other. In the closing sections of this thesis a move is made towards suggesting that SARS-Co V, the singular disease, was the product of a choice-, a choice that was made to explore one aetiological possibility at the expense of another. And that is where the politics comes in. For if politics, the realm of the political, can be taken to arise in situations where various possibilities exist but not all possibilities can be chosen, then it follows that what this thesis provides is an opportunity to foreground the politics bound up with the practical doing of aetiology. As a result, and based on the experience of attempting to recover the vanished multifactorial object from the 2003 SARS outbreak, the thesis concludes with an attempt to inhabit the present in such a way as to make it possible to think, in a little more detail, about where aetiology, as understood by medical microbiologists, might be heading in the future: might recent shifts in practical, everyday, seemingly innocuous microbiological technique, have begun to make it easier to coax the multifactorial object out into a space of visibility? Might those shifts actually herald the crossing of an epistemological threshold in the medical sciences? And might the conditions of aetiological possibility be changing, and changing in ways that would drastically alter what it meant to speak of a 'disease', an 'infection' and a 'pathogen'? 616.9
2	From the "rising tide" to solidarity: disrupting dominant crisis discourses in dementia social policy in neoliberal times MacLeod, Suzanne 26 March 2014 (has links) As a social worker practising in long-term residential care for people living with dementia, I am alarmed by discourses in the media and health policy that construct persons living with dementia and their health care needs as a threatening “rising tide” or crisis. I am particularly concerned about the material effects such dominant discourses, and the values they uphold, might have on the collective provision of care and support for our elderly citizens in the present neoliberal economic and political context of health care. To better understand how dominant discourses about dementia work at this time when Canada’s population is aging and the number of persons living with dementia is anticipated to increase, I have rooted my thesis in poststructural methodology. My research method is a discourse analysis, which draws on Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical concepts, to examine two contemporary health policy documents related to dementia care – one national and one provincial. I also incorporate some poetic representation – or found poetry – to write up my findings. While deconstructing and disrupting taken for granted dominant crisis discourses on dementia in health policy, my research also makes space for alternative constructions to support discursive and health policy possibilities in solidarity with persons living with dementia so that they may thrive. / Graduate / 0452 / 0680 / 0351 / macsuz@shaw.ca social determinants of health social exclusion crisis discourse Alzheimer's Alzheimer Society of Canada Suzanne MacLeod Susan Strega Donna Jeffery poststructural poststructuralism admission to long-term care funding for long-term care acute care aging demographic BC Psychogeriatric Association biomedical British Columbia Canada Health Act collective social responsibility competition corporate profit corporatization deresponsibilization elder friendly elderly citizens family caregivers Foucault found poetry genealogy of power knowledge incompetent Ministry of Health moral economics pharmaceutical bed blocker stigmatized tsunami absent-person action plan aging population alternative discourse apocalyptic demography appropriate archaeology archaeology of knowledge archaeological British Columbia burden Canada caregiver charity charitable collective collective car community community care condition of possibility conditions of possibility corporate counter-discourse dementia dementia care dementia policy dementia social policy dependent depoliticize discourse discourse analysis disruptive discourse economic burden economics economy elder emergency epidemic exclusion fear-monger Foucauldian found poem genealogy genealogical health authority health care health care staff health care system health policy document healthy lifestyle home and community care homogenization homogenize hospital imaginaries imaginary incapable individual responsibility individualism knowledge long-term care material effect materiality of discourse media moral panic national strategy neoliberal neoliberalism neoliberal rationality not prepared object objectification other person-centered people living with dementia person living with dementia persons living with dementia person with dementia poem poetic representation poetry policy policies political politics power power knowledge power relations private privatize privatization productivity of dominant discourse public health care residential care resistance responsibility responsibilization rising tide safety net shift costs to caregivers responsibility social policy imaginary social well-being social work social worker solidarity specialized stakeholder state stigma subject matter expert taxpayer threat unprepared unproductive voluntary volunteer wait time wave social policy
3	From the "rising tide" to solidarity: disrupting dominant crisis discourses in dementia social policy in neoliberal times MacLeod, Suzanne 26 March 2014 (has links) As a social worker practising in long-term residential care for people living with dementia, I am alarmed by discourses in the media and health policy that construct persons living with dementia and their health care needs as a threatening “rising tide” or crisis. I am particularly concerned about the material effects such dominant discourses, and the values they uphold, might have on the collective provision of care and support for our elderly citizens in the present neoliberal economic and political context of health care. To better understand how dominant discourses about dementia work at this time when Canada’s population is aging and the number of persons living with dementia is anticipated to increase, I have rooted my thesis in poststructural methodology. My research method is a discourse analysis, which draws on Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical concepts, to examine two contemporary health policy documents related to dementia care – one national and one provincial. I also incorporate some poetic representation – or found poetry – to write up my findings. While deconstructing and disrupting taken for granted dominant crisis discourses on dementia in health policy, my research also makes space for alternative constructions to support discursive and health policy possibilities in solidarity with persons living with dementia so that they may thrive. / Graduate / 0452 / 0680 / 0351 / macsuz@shaw.ca social determinants of health social exclusion crisis discourse Alzheimer's Alzheimer Society of Canada Suzanne MacLeod Susan Strega Donna Jeffery poststructural poststructuralism admission to long-term care funding for long-term care acute care aging demographic BC Psychogeriatric Association biomedical British Columbia Canada Health Act collective social responsibility competition corporate profit corporatization deresponsibilization elder friendly elderly citizens family caregivers Foucault found poetry genealogy of power knowledge incompetent Ministry of Health moral economics pharmaceutical bed blocker stigmatized tsunami absent-person action plan aging population alternative discourse apocalyptic demography appropriate archaeology archaeology of knowledge archaeological British Columbia burden Canada caregiver charity charitable collective collective car community community care condition of possibility conditions of possibility corporate counter-discourse dementia dementia care dementia policy dementia social policy dependent depoliticize discourse discourse analysis disruptive discourse economic burden economics economy elder emergency epidemic exclusion fear-monger Foucauldian found poem genealogy genealogical health authority health care health care staff health care system health policy document healthy lifestyle home and community care homogenization homogenize hospital imaginaries imaginary incapable individual responsibility individualism knowledge long-term care material effect materiality of discourse media moral panic national strategy neoliberal neoliberalism neoliberal rationality not prepared object objectification other person-centered people living with dementia person living with dementia persons living with dementia person with dementia poem poetic representation poetry policy policies political politics power power knowledge power relations private privatize privatization productivity of dominant discourse public health care residential care resistance responsibility responsibilization rising tide safety net shift costs to caregivers responsibility social policy imaginary social well-being social work social worker solidarity specialized stakeholder state stigma subject matter expert taxpayer threat unprepared unproductive voluntary volunteer wait time wave social policy

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