Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the uses of biomedical technologies for the diagnosis of paediatric intellectual disability in Morocco. As we demonstrate children’, parents’ and health professionals’ social arrangements around technologies, we also highlight how public health policies influence actors’ agency.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims at improving the understandings of the uses of biomedical technologies for children with intellectual disability. Based on a fieldwork conducted in a Moroccan psychiatric hospital, we focus on I.Q tests and medical imaging, both technologies being used for intellectual disability diagnosis. Referring to WHO biomedical technology definition, which includes "devices and procedures developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of life", we pay attention to the social uses of these technologies and their impact on the daily life of children, parents and professionals. From a critical medical anthropologic perspective, we think that actors have agency capacities, varying with social characteristics. We describe therapeutic itineraries and interactions during medical and patients' home visits to illustrate some individual arrangements made to gain time, plead for mercy, share or evade responsibilities or reduce discrimination. Whatever the situation, we advance that arrangements tie social bonds and reveal care for each other. Furthermore, we suggest considering the broader political context, shedding light on the tension between local environment and the global trend of standardization in shaping care for children with psychiatric disorders. At this local/global intersection, actors' agency may be caught up in a series of logics that relativize it and potentially perpetrate inequalities and domination. We demonstrate that these logics, embodied in public health policies, concern financial issues and the rise of cognitive and neuroscience approaches in a postcolonial context. Conclusively, we propose that sociocultural dimensions of the uses of technologies should be emphasized to improve paediatric psychiatric care.