Postdocs
Wearables and Meaning-Making: Understanding the Role of Self-Monitoring Technologies for People with Dementia
Wearables and Meaning-Making: Understanding the Role of Self-Monitoring Technologies for People with Dementia
Prosjektperiode
October 2020–October 2023
About the project
In her postdoctoral project, Ana explores how people who live with mild cognitive impairments and early onset dementia use their embodied endowments, affordances, and self-monitoring technologies such as wearables to make sense of the world and to engage in everyday life. By focusing on lived experiences, this project aims to address the gap in the literature that otherwise mainly examines technological, medical, and cultural aspects of these technologies.
The project seeks to understand the pre-conceptual and affective aspects of the research subjects’ experiences and how they habituate their body and cognitive impairment. Methodologically, the project is anchored in sensory ethnography and the phenomenology of the body. The project is theoretically interdisciplinary and derives from biosemiotics, affect studies, critical disability and dementia studies.
Background
Ana Koncul is a postdoctoral fellow at CitPro. She holds a PhD from the University of South-Eastern Norway and an MA in Semiotics (University of Tartu). In her academic work, Ana explores how sensory and cognitive differences affect meaning-making processes within the context of health. At VID, Ana works on a research project focused on welfare technologies and dementia. Her research interests include cognitive semiotics, health studies, affect theory, phenomenology, new materialism, and universal design.
Previously she worked as a visiting researcher at the Department of Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies (Goldsmiths, University of London), and Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences (Maastricht University). In her non-academic roles, Ana worked as an art director and producer in various international organizations.
Research groups and networks:
The Citizens Project: Everyday Citizenship for Persons in Vulnerable Situations (CiTPro)
- Work package lead: Welfare technologies & dementia
COST network: NET4Age-Friendly (CA19136)
- Working groups on user-centered design & integrated health and well-being pathways
Research group Citizenship and people in vulnerable life situations (CitVul)
Citizenship and Dementia: International Research Network (based at Linköping University)
Research group Sustainable Healthcare and Welfare Technologies (SHWT)
Supervision
Elizabeth George (doctoral research fellow at VID)
Teaching
Universal Design