Workshop on polyphonic/polycontextural healthcare - new book coming up

12 researchers from  Denmark, Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States gathered at the 27th and the 28th of September 2012 in Denmark for a workshop on polyphonic/polycontextural healthcare. The workshop took place at CBS and were sponsored by the CBS Public-Private Platform and  organized by  associate professor Morten Knudsen , CBS IOA and  professor Verner Vogd from the Private University  of Vitten-Herdecke, Germany.  

From left to right: Sarah Poranzke, Till Jansen, Morten Knudsen, Niels Åkerstrøm, Werner Vogd, Anna Henkel, Barry Gibson, Jennifer Burr, John Harrington, Dimitris Michailakis and Werner Schirmer, (Participants not present at the moment the picture was taken is: Hanne Knudsen, Daniel Lüdecke and Holger Højlund)

The workshop discussed how the concepts of polycontexturality and polyphony can enlighten aspects of todays health services. ‘Polycontexturality’ is a system theoretical attempt to conceptualize the co-existence and the mutual observations of different communicative logics. It is a common idea that the modern society and its organizations are characterized by the co-existence of different logics (politics, economy, law, health etc.). This is often captured by terms like multiple or institutional logics.

This workshop radicalized the idea of multiple logics and asked what happens when these – communicative - logics begin to observe and reflect each other. Health care professionals observe for instance, that resources are limited and must be prioritized. That means they begin to observe health care in economical terms. How is that done and what are the arrangements framing such – in principle – incommensurable logics? This kind of mutual observations also problematizes the naivity of different communicative logics. They observe that their own way of observing is one among many. Instead of multi-culturalism, we get multi-contexturalism.

The workshop also discussed the diagnosis of ‘polyphony’ meaning an unplanned polycontexturality. That is a situation in which it is not on beforehand planned or organized which communicative logics that are to frame decisions and self-descriptions. The workshop explored these and related problematics from different angles related to health care (medical law, mediating institutions like ethical committees, studies of patient cases, organizational reforms, health campaigns and the like).

The papers of the workshop will be edited into a book by the two organizers.