- Convenors:
-
Xu Liu
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Matteo Valoncini (University of Bologna)
Avilasha Ghosh (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Network:
- Network Panel
Short Abstract
This panel discusses how AI reshapes healthcare and deepens epistemic inequalities between and within the Global South and North. We call for rethinking conceptual frameworks to address diverse contexts of technological applications in healthcare with more inclusive, situated understandings.
Long Abstract
The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare has transformed patterns and perceptions of medical diagnosis, practice, and treatment. However, with the integration of AI in healthcare governance, clinical practice, medical research and patients’ subjective decision-making, epistemic inequalities gradually emerge due to the uneven technological access and application between and within the Global South and the Global North. AI-related technologies are being adopted, resisted, or reinterpreted at different paces and through diverse cultural and economic logics. While the integration of AI risks accelerating neoliberal processes to improve efficiency in healthcare systems with more cost-effective interventions in the Global North, it has also deepened gaps in access to knowledge and care in marginalized and resource-strapped contexts. Meanwhile, growing concerns about patient privacy with varied impacts on healthcare systems across countries have sparked debates regarding information protection and user regulation of AI-related healthcare provision.
We therefore invite scholars to reconsider the anthropological discourse that engages with the relations between data-driven technology, health systems, and care trajectories. How can medical anthropology contribute to a situated understanding of the complex interactions between AI, health systems and medicine? By acknowledging the epistemic plurality that is grounded in specific local contexts, we aim to pursue more equitable and inclusive frameworks of medical anthropology's interrogation of health and technology. We welcome contributions addressing epistemic shifts, particularly but not restricted to those grounded in marginalized contexts of technological applications in healthcare governance, clinical practice and patient experiences.