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Dear all,

We invite you to submit an abstract to our track Beyond the individual.
Professional expertise and grassroots participation in designing
technologies for mental health and wellbeing – at the 7th STS Italia
Conference “Technoscience from Below”
(www.frombelow-stsitaliaconf.org
), June 14 through 16,
2018,University
of Padova, Italy.

Convenors:

Enrico Maria Piras – Fondazione Bruno Kessler, piras@fbk.eu

Silvia Fornasini – Fondazione Bruno Kessler, fornasini@fbk.eu

​
(Track 12) Beyond the individual. Professional expertise and grassroots
participation in designing technologies for mental health and wellbeing
Abstract

In the last few years there is a growing interest in mental health and
wellbeing technologies. Mobile applications are believed to have the
potential to offer affordable, convenient, and engaging support. Moreover,
the anonymity granted by technologies is often considered a way to attract
people that would not seek for help fearing to be stigmatized. This
increasing attention has led to interventions through instant messaging and
videoconferencing systems, virtual reality, conversational agents, serious
games, social media. These solutions have attracted the interest of
computer science and medical informatics, focused on how
technology-mediated communication can trigger new effective care models:
this happens not only as regards the mental illness, but also in the wider
context of prevention and support of mental disorders related to other
conditions (diabetes, cancer, eating disorders, ageing, cyberbullying
etc.). Furthermore, clinical psychology and human computer interaction have
joined the debate proposing behavioral interventions to be delivered
through persuasive technologies and virtual coaching systems. However, most
of the existing debates focus on how technologies enable selfcare through
symptoms self-tracking and quantification. The implicit depiction of mental
illness is a syndrome based on quantity and duration of symptoms, where the
subject is individualized and separated from any social relation. The aim
of this track is to address some of the underpinnings of the aforementioned
approaches, investigating mental health and wellbeing technologies from an
STS perspective, focusing on this alternative co-production of knowledge
about mental health and shared care practices, where professional and lay
expertise find a new common ground, and in which non-humans play a key
role. We are specifically interested in investigating the role of
technologies for mental health and wellbeing in involving unconventional
and heterogeneous actors in the care network such as parents, friends,
teachers, colleagues, patients support groups.

Starting from this understanding of care, we intend to attract
theoretically, empirically, and/or methodologically oriented contributes
focused on: - Ongoing changes in health care professions and services
connected to the diffusion of technologies for mental health and wellbeing;
- New professional visions, expertise and abilities mediated by
technologies in the field of mental health and wellbeing; - The role of lay
and professional expertise in the mental health and wellbeing
technologically-mediated care practices; - Technologies of coordination of
new actors in the care network; - Participation of citizens and other
non-institutional actors in the design of technologies; - Peer support
through technologies of mental health and wellbeing; - Emerging conflicts
between politics and practices of mental health and wellbeing care.

To participate:



Abstracts (written in English, or in Italian in case of tracks in double
language) should be submitted by February, 10 to the conference email
address (7thstsitaliaconf@gmail.com) and to the emails of convenors.
Submission should include:


1. Author’s name and surname, institution and email address
2. Title
3. Abstract’s text (no more than 300 word all included)



Next important dates:



February, 10 2018 - Deadline for abstracts submission

March 10, 2018 - Authors notified of abstract acceptance or rejection

March 25, 2018 - Early-bird registration fees

April 15, 2018 - Late registration fees (mandatory to be included in the
programme)

May 20, 2018 - Publication of final conference program



Please feel free to circulate this announcement widely.



​Best wishes,​


​Enrico & Silvia

--
Silvia Fornasini
PhD Student @ Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of
Trento
Researcher @ Center for Information and Communication Technology, Fondazione
Bruno Kessler
Office 0461 314140

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