Alvis Gómez KM1, Rodríguez-Esparza J2
1Univerisidad Nacional de Colombia, Corporal Movement Department, Bogota, Colombia, 2Univerisidad Nacional de Colombia, Master Degree in Disability and Social Inclusion, Bogota, Colombia
Background: The inclusive feature of technology in the field of disability, is conceived and designed with the aim of improving the quality of life, generate human development, encourage participation in their environments, develop skills, improve their individuality, achieve social inclusion, among other aspects tending to reduce the exclusion and disadvantage gap that is evident in the population with disabilities. However, technological developments in this area have not been alien to technological determinism, which is derived from exclusionary methodologies that develop "solutions" to problems that are not fully known, without interacting with the end users of the devices.
Purpose: To analyze and to describe the perceptions of the main actors of disability context about the relationship between Social Construction of Technology and: human development, human capacities and social inclusion of people in a disability situation.
Methods: An ethnographic method was used, in which four groups of actors were defined: G1-blind or deafblind people whom had been participating in a technology validation processes (6 participants); G2- Technology developers (3 participants); G3-Deaf People (2 participants); and, G4- People with physical disabilities (5 participants). Intentional sampling was used. Semi structured interviews, focus groups, and life stories were developed; the categories of analysis were defined and the instruments were submitted to the judgment of three experts from the areas of sociology, human rights and technology, who issued their judgments and recommendations. After the application of the instruments, the triangulation of the information obtained was carried out. The assessment protocol was endorsed by the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Act 007-070a-16).
Results: The texts and contexts of the participants are analyzed from the relationships between the social construction of technology with: human capacities, social development, and social inclusion. The analysis allows to identify an equation that establishes the relationship between human capacities and all the human, social and cultural factors that can intervene in the development of a technology for disability: PC = F_SC x R_T.
Conclusion(s): Technology is an active and susceptible factor that can generate individual and social changes. Technology is not passive, there are personal, social, cultural, psychological, economic interests that break and cross its borders to convert it from a purely instrumental element to an active element that can be humanized by the network of human actors that intervene in its development, human actors who in turn are technified to produce among this network a socio-technical artifact.
Implications: This research constitutes the basis for future studies that contribute to the humanization of the technology-human development-social development interface
Keywords: Technology, Disability, Social Construction of Technology
Funding acknowledgements: Acknowledgments to the Department of Human Body Movement of the Faculty of Medicine - Universidad Nacional de Colombia- Bogotá Branch.
Purpose: To analyze and to describe the perceptions of the main actors of disability context about the relationship between Social Construction of Technology and: human development, human capacities and social inclusion of people in a disability situation.
Methods: An ethnographic method was used, in which four groups of actors were defined: G1-blind or deafblind people whom had been participating in a technology validation processes (6 participants); G2- Technology developers (3 participants); G3-Deaf People (2 participants); and, G4- People with physical disabilities (5 participants). Intentional sampling was used. Semi structured interviews, focus groups, and life stories were developed; the categories of analysis were defined and the instruments were submitted to the judgment of three experts from the areas of sociology, human rights and technology, who issued their judgments and recommendations. After the application of the instruments, the triangulation of the information obtained was carried out. The assessment protocol was endorsed by the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Act 007-070a-16).
Results: The texts and contexts of the participants are analyzed from the relationships between the social construction of technology with: human capacities, social development, and social inclusion. The analysis allows to identify an equation that establishes the relationship between human capacities and all the human, social and cultural factors that can intervene in the development of a technology for disability: PC = F_SC x R_T.
Conclusion(s): Technology is an active and susceptible factor that can generate individual and social changes. Technology is not passive, there are personal, social, cultural, psychological, economic interests that break and cross its borders to convert it from a purely instrumental element to an active element that can be humanized by the network of human actors that intervene in its development, human actors who in turn are technified to produce among this network a socio-technical artifact.
Implications: This research constitutes the basis for future studies that contribute to the humanization of the technology-human development-social development interface
Keywords: Technology, Disability, Social Construction of Technology
Funding acknowledgements: Acknowledgments to the Department of Human Body Movement of the Faculty of Medicine - Universidad Nacional de Colombia- Bogotá Branch.
Topic: Disability & rehabilitation; Robotics & technology; Information management, technology & big data
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Ethics committee: Faculty of Medicine- Universidad Nacional de Colomboa
Ethics number: Act 007-070a-16
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
