Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the methodological capacities of ‘problems’ as analytic objects drawing on material from an ongoing study of the rise of health data (wearables, genomics and digitized patient records) in both the NHS and private healthcare industries using digital methods techniques.

Paper long abstract:

STS has historically focused on a variety of indeterminate objects such as controversies, matters of concern and issues because they help disclose previously blackboxed, backstage phenomena or heterogeneous entanglements which cross domains of social life. But what are researchers to do when our objects refuse to conform to these familiar shapes? This paper considers the methodological capacities of 'problems' using two types of digital methods developed with specific kinds of 'problems' in mind: the issue crawler (Rogers and Marres 2000) which studies the formation of public issues through hyperlink networks and co-word analysis (Callon et al 1986) which identified the role of 'problematizations' in scientific papers. We will test these tools on empirical materials from an ongoing study of the rise of big data in healthcare industry, including wearables, genomic data and digitised patient records. These new possibilities, which may have consequences for privacy, wellbeing and the payment and provision of healthcare have yet to take hold as either a highly contentious public issue or as a more procedural technological development. How does one study an emergent, problematic future which is in many ways failing to take hold and lacks definition? Do 'problems' demand different kinds of methods and approaches from STS researchers? What practical/methodological problems do such 'problems' present for STS?