Prosthetics and the Technological Sublime

• In Event: Replaceable Parts: Prosthetic Technologies in Biomedicine

Abstract

In this paper I will discuss the way in which a technological imaginary shapes the framing of prosthetic limbs in at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted between 2006 – 2008 and 2012 through 2014. Those projects have been concerned with the role that technique and technology play in how good clinical outcomes are negotiated and understood by patients and clinicians and how former patients experience their lives in the community. ​The rehabilitation clinic at Walter Reed is a heavily technologized site. Patient progress, in terms of both their physical functioning and their health in a more global sense, is measured by their incorporation of assistive technologies. The rehabilitation program promises patients that their commitment and work to master their prosthetic technology with the help and guidance of the clinicians will lead to them being returned to an approximation of their pre-injury functioning. ​The heavy emphasis on medical technology is an extension of the role that technology plays in more generally in the military. In this way biotechnology serves as both a symbol of the prestige that the military has in American society more generally, and as a materialized manifestation of this prestige and status in the form of promises of continued care. The fulfillment of this process has led to developments including the formation of new types of citizenship that draws on service and sacrifice as the grounds of claims for continued public support.

Author

• Seth Messinger, UMBC