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ABSTRACT
This article contributes to the discussion of how people with limited communication means become active participants in the assessment of welfare technologies. The article combines ethnomethodology with insights from Science and Technology Studies and emphasises the situated and multimodal practices that constitute the trial as a joint activity in which the impaired person becomes a competent participant and independent walker. The analysis is based on video recordings from a case study in which a person with brain injury is trying out a new type of walking help. The trial is understood as a situated learning process in which the participants prepare, enact and assess the performance of the technology-supported walking. The article distinguishes two iterative phases in which the impaired person is constituted as an independent walker: the adjustment and assessment of a body–device relation and, further, the performance and assessment of the activity the user can perform.
Acknowledgments
Our special regards are directed to the participants of the video recordings and our collaboration partners for their cooperation. We want to thank the participants of the NISCI and the participants of our data sessions as well as the reviewers of this article for their constructive comments. We also want to thank Sophie Mortensen and Line Frost for their help in transcribing the videos and for their comments and ideas on the data.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflict of interest.
Funding
The study was funded by the Danish cross-regional project OPI Lab, which was mainly financed through the EU’s structural funds but also received funding from the Danish Business Authority and the five participating regions.
Notes
1 The transcription conventions are as follows (see also Heath et al., Citation2010):