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- Convenor:
-
Raymond Apthorpe
(Royal Anthropological Institute)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Thursday 9 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
By comparison with the plethora of theoretical and practical guidance for ex post policy evaluation of the actual track-records which have been achieved (or not), despite important exceptions such as environmental social impact analysis it remains that publicly available such guidance for serious ex ante evaluation, forecasting, predicting, of promised and planned futures is largely non-existent. What could a socio-cultural anthropological sensibility contribute to such ex ante evaluation?
Long Abstract:
With its well-rehearsed concerns for instance with societal and cultural continuity as well as schism, normative social order as well as normative disorder, alternative ideational conceptions of times and futures and societal and cultural disjunction as well as conjunction, the multiple appearances as well as the multiple realities of socio-cultural landscapes, and along with both substantivist and formalist modes and models of linkage and effect both structuralist and functionalist epistemologies, surely an anthropological sensibility would have much to contribute towards the credentials of socially and culturally informed ex ante, anticipatory, policy evaluation. But what, and how, such an anthropologically informed ex ante evaluation is to be theorised and done remains currently an open question. Thus whether with regard to development, humanitarian or environmental policy and policy studies, case study and/or programmatic papers are invited with a view to improving the ethnographic and discursive intelligibility required for, for example, answers as to how to reduce risk of ‘double jeopardy’ where whether through irrelevance or adverse consequences an ignorant policy might ab initio be condemned to make promised futures worse not better.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 9 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
While anthropological contribution can focus on social-cultural factors influencing ex ante evaluation of policy, strategy, programme or project, it also has a significant role to play in "calling out" flawed methods utilised to develop policy in applied settings.
Paper long abstract:
While anthropological contribution can focus on social-cultural factors influencing ex ante evaluation of policy, strategy, programme or project, it also has a significant role to play in "calling out" flawed methods utilised to develop policy in applied settings. This paper presents a case study on the method utilised to develop a significant policy intervention, comparing and contrasting the work in the applied setting to a "best practice" model of policy development. The paper raises the question: Is policy a validated and genealogically coherent response to social and/or economic need, or the fragile love-child of organisational culture? The paper closes with a discussion on the potential for greater discipline in policy development and ex ante evaluation through the integration of intelligent digital technology.
Paper short abstract:
The island nation of Singapore has soared to become one of the world's strongest and most resilient economies, while achieving massive social gains. We look at the innovative methods used to create social policy, which engage anthropologists to analyse and prepare for multiple possible futures.
Paper long abstract:
A futuristic city founded on anthropology:
Thrust into independence half a century ago, a country smaller than New York City with few natural resources had an uncertain chance of survival. Since then, the city state of Singapore has transformed into an economic powerhouse, winning international acclaim. This success has been accomplished alongside impressive social development, ranking first among 189 economies in the World Bank's 2020 Human Capital Index.
Part of this maturation has been Singapore's strategic futures planning. The state has never had the luxury of not planning for the future, with little capacity to absorb the consequences of large policy errors and external shocks.
This paper looks at two pioneering agencies in Singapore, which use ground breaking anthropological methods to provide insight and guidance to policy makers: The Centre for Strategic Futures, part of the Prime Minister's Office, and independent think tank: The Institute of Public Policy.
The methods used by the agencies to gain a deeper understanding into futures are sometimes unorthodox, with social scientists innovating to suspend reality in order to produce informed strategy and policy recommendations. We explore the lengths to which these integrated disciplines go to anticipate and prepare for the 'unknown unknowns'. Beyond predicting 'black swan' events, to the 'black elephant' in the room - exceptional events we know are on the horizon but are reluctant to address.
Through this panel we hope you will be inspired to challenge conformist thinking, articulate ways trends could evolve, and develop innovative tools for futures strategy.
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates an emergent medical and technical innovation we call "Predictive Care." Drawing on pilot data from a computational ethnography we examine how the imagined potential of Predictive Care "makes live" new social arrangements and forms of "care" in medicine.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates an emergent medical and technical innovation we call "Predictive Care." Predictive Care is an approach to healthcare driven by advances in Artificial Intelligence (e.g. Machine Learning or ML) that combines Big Data (on whole populations) and Small Data (data on any single person) to identify patterns and predict outcomes or behaviors. While few Predictive Care tools are currently in use, in psychiatry there is high demand for a model designed to anticipate the likelihood of inpatient violence or aggression. The impetus behind these efforts is a desire to generate more accurate assessments of risk and facilitate proactive and targeted interventions (e.g., seclusion), while also preventing unnecessary ones (eg, restraints). At present, nurses assess patients every 2-3 hours for seven different signs of aggression (eg, irritability) and generate a daily predictive score (0-7). However, high scores (4+) may result in longer Emergency Department (ED) stays and increase the likelihood of being restrained and/or secluded. Further, internal data suggests that Black men are more frequently brought to the ED by police and restrained. Drawing on pilot data from a hybrid approach to shared datasets (computational ethnography) we examine how the imagined potential of Predictive Care 'makes live' new social arrangements and forms of 'care' in psychiatry. We show how these emergent tools reconfigure everyday workflows for clinicians who must alter their actions in the present to produce desirable future outcomes.