My name is Rachel Allison. I am pleased to introduce myself as a new PhD student at TSS. As of 1 September, I am a member of the ERC-funded project ‘The birth of the digital doctor? A comparative anthropology of medical techno-perception,’ lead by Anna Harris, and supervised by Sally Wyatt and Harro van Lente.
This research project plans to explore the impact of the digital in medicine by ethnographically interrogating the role of pedagogical technologies in how novice doctors learn the skills of physical examination. The project will bring together and compare data from medical schools in Maastricht, Tamale, and Budapest (where I will conduct my fieldwork).
Originally from Australia, I completed my bachelor’s degree in International and Global Studies at the University of Sydney. Following this, I moved to Denmark to pursue a research master’s in medical anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. Here, my MSc. thesis explored the contemporary temporal configuration of impaired fecundity in the United States, in light of the development, uptake, and proliferation of assisted reproductive technologies.
My current research interests include reproductive technology, temporality, chronicity and acuteness, medicalisation, gender, feminist approaches within anthropology, and visual and sensory ethnography (however, I look forward to expanding upon these over the course of the next four years!).
I am brand new to Maastricht (and the Netherlands) and am looking forward to getting to know the area as well as my new colleagues here at FASoS.
