Leppälä (2024). Practices in Medical device innovation: Navigation and Enactment as Social Practice Trades

Summary: This article is related to my dissertation that studied the worker social practices during early stage innovation of a complex medical device. This topic was studied as a longitudinal, at-home ethnography with multiple methods of data gathering. The research provided an ethnography of the site and participants. Additionally, the analysis demonstrated how four philosophically bound practice orientations and three large organizational themes created tensions, and that the practice orientations were also plastic, creating a phenomena of social practice trades. This is important when examining socially rooted empiria, especially through a social practice lens. This article is a lecture which preceded the doctoral defence; social practices and ethnography are both rooted in philosophy and anthropology.

Usefulness of the results: The study of social practices allows for the examination and analysis of socially bound empiria. This study’s theory, methodology, and social practice trade framework can be useful when examining sustainability and the circular economy; This close-to-the-field method of research places the researcher in a post-modern research position, directly within the phenomena. The study’s rich methodology provides anchors for future studies of social practices as they are emerging and while they are enacted.

Authors: Kristina Leppala, University of Eastern Finland

Publishing date: 10.9.2024

Format of the publication: Lectio praecursoria

Publishing platform: Suomen Antropologi (https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.146060)

More information: kristina.leppala@uef.fi