Ethnographies of Diagnostic Work - Dimensions of Transformative Practice (Electronic book text)

Ethnographies of Diagnostic Work explores social and material practices of diagnosis in diverse contexts, from healthcare to railway maintenance, contributing novel conceptual and methodological resources to the search for more desirable futures in our 'diagnostic times'. With increasingly pervasive (technologically augmented) diagnostic powers doctors, the police, mechanics, but also public service workers and many others, are able to detect troubles early, along the way introducing burdens of accounting to facilitate bureaucratic diagnosis of performance, difficulties in managing the status and implications of diagnostic knowledge, and in negotiating responsibilities for action. With rich descriptions of real world practices and creative analytical perspectives brought by researchers who are often actively engaged in innovation, this book gives definition to an emergent 'new view of diagnosis' that is relevant to a range of different fields, from medicine to human factors to design and policy, highlighting transformative dimensions of practice and exploring the potential of engaged research to inform innovation.