Tamar Sharon
I am professor of Philosophy, Digitalization and Society, head of the department of Ethics and Political Philosophy and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Hub for Security, Privacy and Data Governance (iHub - https://www.ru.nl/ihub/) at Radboud University, The Netherlands . I studied history, political theory and interdisciplinary studies at Paris Jussieu, Tel Aviv University and Bar Ilan University in Israel. I obtained my PhD (cum laude) in 2011, on the implications of enhancement technologies for our understandings of human nature (Human Nature in an Age of Biotechnology, New York: Springer 2013).
My research draws from the fields of philosophy of technology, STS and critical data studies. I’m interested in the new possibilities and risks that emerging health and digital technologies present for personal health and self-understanding, clinical care and medical knowledge production in relation to broader politico-normative discourses on participation, responsibility and innovation.
In July 2018 I was awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to explore the ethical and societal challenges raised by the entrance of large consumer technology companies – such as Alphabet, Apple or Amazon – into the domain of health and biomedical research. The project’s starting point is that the most pressing challenge at stake at this new intersection of digital health and digital capitalism is how to secure the common good, but that there are many different conceptions of the common good at work in this “Googlization of health”; from the common good understood as “greater inclusivity”, to the common good understood as “increased efficiency”, “economic growth”, or “better health”. Our team of researchers will conduct fieldwork to map, analyze and evaluate the different conceptions of the common good that motivate actors in a number of research collaborations between consumer tech firms and public research institutions in Europe and in the US. The aim of the project is to develop a normative framework for data governance in this context that can foreground collective benefit all the while accounting for this ethical pluralism.
From 2014-2017 I worked on a project called “You are what you track: Autonomy, solidarity and authenticity in an age of personalized healthcare”, with a "Veni" grant funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The project looked at how people use self-tracking technologies – mobile devices and wearable sensors that allow them to collect and monitor various types of health data about themselves – in the much anticipated move towards personalized healthcare.
From 2012-2014 I worked on a research project called "Healthy Creativity: The Implicit Normativity of Healthy Citizenship" (NWO-Rubicon). This project looked at how users engage with various new health technologies (genetic testing, telecare, the use of the internet for health reasons), at a time when individuals are increasingly expected to view health as a matter of personal responsibility – to practice “healthy citizenship”. I studied the ways in which people resist and re-interpret healthy citizenship discourse in unexpected and creative ways through technology use.
I am a member of the WHO European Advisory Committee on Health Research, and part of the Data and IT in Health and Medicine Lab at King’s College London and the Gr1p Foundation (http://gr1p.org/).
Address: Radboud University
Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies
9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen
My research draws from the fields of philosophy of technology, STS and critical data studies. I’m interested in the new possibilities and risks that emerging health and digital technologies present for personal health and self-understanding, clinical care and medical knowledge production in relation to broader politico-normative discourses on participation, responsibility and innovation.
In July 2018 I was awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to explore the ethical and societal challenges raised by the entrance of large consumer technology companies – such as Alphabet, Apple or Amazon – into the domain of health and biomedical research. The project’s starting point is that the most pressing challenge at stake at this new intersection of digital health and digital capitalism is how to secure the common good, but that there are many different conceptions of the common good at work in this “Googlization of health”; from the common good understood as “greater inclusivity”, to the common good understood as “increased efficiency”, “economic growth”, or “better health”. Our team of researchers will conduct fieldwork to map, analyze and evaluate the different conceptions of the common good that motivate actors in a number of research collaborations between consumer tech firms and public research institutions in Europe and in the US. The aim of the project is to develop a normative framework for data governance in this context that can foreground collective benefit all the while accounting for this ethical pluralism.
From 2014-2017 I worked on a project called “You are what you track: Autonomy, solidarity and authenticity in an age of personalized healthcare”, with a "Veni" grant funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The project looked at how people use self-tracking technologies – mobile devices and wearable sensors that allow them to collect and monitor various types of health data about themselves – in the much anticipated move towards personalized healthcare.
From 2012-2014 I worked on a research project called "Healthy Creativity: The Implicit Normativity of Healthy Citizenship" (NWO-Rubicon). This project looked at how users engage with various new health technologies (genetic testing, telecare, the use of the internet for health reasons), at a time when individuals are increasingly expected to view health as a matter of personal responsibility – to practice “healthy citizenship”. I studied the ways in which people resist and re-interpret healthy citizenship discourse in unexpected and creative ways through technology use.
I am a member of the WHO European Advisory Committee on Health Research, and part of the Data and IT in Health and Medicine Lab at King’s College London and the Gr1p Foundation (http://gr1p.org/).
Address: Radboud University
Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies
9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen
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Papers by Tamar Sharon
values at stake in this debate is solidarity. While proponents view self-tracking for health as enhancing solidarity in times of a public
healthcare crisis, opponents perceive it as contributing to an erosion of solidarity, by shifting responsibility for health from the state
to individuals. Taking a practice-based approach that understands values as embedded in practices, I describe how the self-tracking
practices of members of the “Quantified Self” community problematise these positions and point to the emergence of novel forms of
solidarity.
narrative aid. In light of this active engagement with data, we suggest that it makes more sense to view these practitioners as “quantifying selves.” We also suggest that such fine grained accounts of the appeal that data can have, beyond its allure of objectivity, are necessary if we are to achieve a fuller understanding of Big Data culture.
values at stake in this debate is solidarity. While proponents view self-tracking for health as enhancing solidarity in times of a public
healthcare crisis, opponents perceive it as contributing to an erosion of solidarity, by shifting responsibility for health from the state
to individuals. Taking a practice-based approach that understands values as embedded in practices, I describe how the self-tracking
practices of members of the “Quantified Self” community problematise these positions and point to the emergence of novel forms of
solidarity.
narrative aid. In light of this active engagement with data, we suggest that it makes more sense to view these practitioners as “quantifying selves.” We also suggest that such fine grained accounts of the appeal that data can have, beyond its allure of objectivity, are necessary if we are to achieve a fuller understanding of Big Data culture.
The volume offers a comprehensive mapping of posthumanist discourse divided into four broad approaches—two humanist-based approaches: dystopic and liberal posthumanism, and two non-humanist approaches: radical and methodological posthumanism. The author compares and contrasts these models via an exploration of key issues, from human enhancement, to eugenics, to new configurations of biopower, questioning what role technology plays in defining the boundaries of the human, the subject and nature for each.
Building on the contributions and limitations of radical and methodological posthumanism, the author develops a novel perspective, mediated posthumanism, that brings together insights in the philosophy of technology, the sociology of biomedicine, and Michel Foucault’s work on ethical subject constitution. In this framework, technology is neither a neutral tool nor a force that alienates humanity from itself, but something that is always already part of the experience of being human, and subjectivity is viewed as an emergent property that is constantly being shaped and transformed by its engagements with biotechnologies. Mediated posthumanism becomes a tool for identifying novel ethical modes of human experience that are richer and more multifaceted than current posthumanist perspectives allow for.
http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=7739&blogid=140