Search results for: Helle Haslund-Thomsen

Authors: Helle Nissen

Abstract:

Physical objects surrounding people in healthcare environments are carriers of institutional logics materialized into the objects by its producers. However, institutional logics research lacks to inform us how logics become materialized and are perceived by producers vs. users of an object. The study is based on a 3-year longitudinal case study of a Danish Public Private Innovation project aiming to co-create an innovative healthcare bed commercialized to public psychiatric hospitals. The producers are a private metal firm and industrial designers from two Danish regions. The findings demonstrate that the metal firm and designers, as producers, negotiate about materializing different logics into the bed throughout the innovation process. An aesthetic logic is prioritized most, and the producers encode it with the intention to develop a bed that looks homely and less hospital-like compared to previous and existing healthcare beds. After the bed is put into use, the aesthetic logic is decoded by the users. Their perception of it differs significantly from the producers’ intended meaning, as the healthcare bed is perceived as sterile. The study has theoretical implications: It demonstrates how logics become materialized ‘here and now’, and it reveals logics as less governed by stable and clear meanings but rather as subject to changeable perceptions.

Keywords: co-creation, healthcare innovation, commercialization, institutional logics

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Authors: Cecilie W. Bang, Camila B. Laursen, Charlotte N. Eggertsen, Søren Hagstrøm, Helle Haslund-Thomsen, Sine Agergaard

Abstract:

Childhood and adolescence are periods characterized by significant bodily changes, particularly puberty’s influence on body shape and appearance. Research has demonstrated that concerns related to body size and body images significantly influence the well-being of children and adolescents. Much of this research adopts an individualistic and/or psychological perspective. Less attention has been paid to relational aspects, particularly the ways in which children and adolescents as embodied, social agents, are actively engaged in relationally shaping and doing body-related practices in various social contexts. This study aims to address this gap by employing an microsociological interactionist approach to explore the social dynamics surrounding children and adolescent’s embodiment, seeking to answer the following question: How do children and adolescents shape and practice their different bodies in peer relations? Methodologically, this research is based on a sociological field study, immersed in the everyday lives of children and adolescents as they unfold in school. Drawing on body sociology, the study observes their embodied practices in social interactions, over a six-month period (Winter/Spring 2025). The research follows three classes from the 1st, 4th, and 7th grades (age range 6-14), respectively, in a public school in Northern Denmark, supplemented by focus group interviews with the children and adolescents, as well as with affiliated teachers and pedagogues. The field study, as an embodied activity, and the physicality of the methodology, provide valuable insights into how children and adolescents practice and make sense of their different bodies. This type of field study also aligns with the interactionist focus on social reality as it unfolds in situ. Within this interactionist inspired framework, social interactions are considered the fundamental unit through which meaning-making and social relations are co-created among social actors. From this perspective, everyday life serves as a central social context, and being embedded in the children and adolescents’ daily school life allows for an in-depth exploration of their often mundane and taken-for-granted practices in peer relations - in other words, the social knowledge that constitutes everyday life. Utilizing sensitizing concepts such as Julia Coffey’s framework on ‘Everyday Embodiment,’ this research describes the diverse ways in which children and adolescents practice and shape their different bodies in everyday social interactions, conceptualising the body as processual and social instead of static. This study’s unique contribution lies in its explorative nature and in foregrounding the relational shaping of children and adolescents’ embodied practices and interactions. Providing insights into how children and adolescents practice their different bodies and interact with current body images, these findings can contribute to the development of future strategies and interventions aimed at enhancing the well-being of young people.

Keywords: adolescence, body image, body sociology, childhood, embodiment, everyday practices, field study, interactionism, peer relations, well-being

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