Resilient Healthcare in Times of Multiple Crises: Connecting Germany and Japan (RE-CARE)

Basic data for this project

Type of project: Individual project
Duration: since 12/06/2024

Description

Faced with the current situation of multiple crises, discussions on the role of technology to enhance the resilience of the healthcare system are gaining increasing importance in Germany and Japan. The focus lies on topics such as AI, sensor media, robotics and telemedicine whose capabilities are being discussed in the context of approaches such as Resilient Health Care and supported by political programs like GEMEINSAM DIGITAL (Germany) and Society 5.0 (Japan). What is currently lacking is a cross-cultural exchange that reflects on the role of technology in light of various crises by combining perspectives from social, cultural, sports, technical sciences and medicine to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between crises, health and technology. The German-Japanese cooperation “RE-CARE” aims to establish this exchange in three steps: 1. investigate the influence of society, culture and crisis on healthcare systems in Germany and Japan, 2. concretize the potential of technology in areas such as care, sports and public health and 3. establish a foundation for future German-Japanese research projects. Although technologies represent a key reference in Resilient Health Care, there is still a lack of critical-reflective approaches that analyze the use of technology considering their contextual embedment. It remains open how culture and crisis are interconnected and influence the development of technology, how notions of humans, risks, threats and expectations of future (in)security are integrated into them, how they incorporate and constitute social, political and interactive orders, conventions and routines, and how their use is linked to each country’s technology and crisis history. There is also a need to discuss how the use of technologies is linked to promises of optimization – such as resource conservation or the acceleration and deceleration (of workflows, movements, presences, data aggregation etc.) – and what connections (e.g., between bodies, organs, doctors and patients) as well as forms of evaluation and differentiation (e.g., into infected, sick, threatened) accompany the use of technology. In a broader context, the project will also shed light on the societal instabilities and vulnerabilities brought about by events like pandemics, earthquakes, nuclear disasters as well as ecological and demographic developments. It will explore how notions of care work, caregiving and solidarity vary depending on the crisis and culture, in which crisis situations something is considered un/solidaristic, un/bearable and un/reasonable and in which situations crises become fundamental turning points leading to societal “nervous breakdowns”.

Keywords: Resilience; Germany; Japan; Sustainability; Health; Sports; Society; Technology; Medicine