{"id":3299,"date":"2022-03-17T10:00:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T09:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3299"},"modified":"2022-03-17T09:58:42","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T08:58:42","slug":"livingbodiesobjects-with-stuart-murray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2022\/03\/17\/livingbodiesobjects-with-stuart-murray\/","title":{"rendered":"LivingBodiesObjects with Stuart Murray"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Podcast with Brandy Schillace and Stuart Murray<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>LivingBodiesObjects is a 3-year project funded by the Wellcome Trust designed to test and extend the boundaries of Medical Humanities research. <a href=\"https:\/\/wellcome.org\/\">Wellcome<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0three-year development grant will be used to further understand the relationship between the human body and technologies associated with health and disability. At the same time, the project will look critically at the way research gets done\u2014and how research questions are themselves generated. We are excited to be part of this project by offering a platform to share that journey.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stuart Murray is Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film and Director of the Centre of Medical Humanities at the University of Leeds in the UK. He has published widely on representations of disability and his latest book is <\/em><strong>Disability and the Posthuman: Bodies, Technology, and Cultural Futures<\/strong><em> (Liverpool UP, 2020). He is the lead on the Wellcome Trust-funded <\/em><strong>Imagining Technologies for Disability Futures<\/strong><em> project, and joint-lead on <\/em><strong>LivingBodiesObjects: Technologies and the Spaces of Health<\/strong><em>, also funded by Wellcome.<\/em><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\r\n       .errordiv { padding:10px; margin:10px; border: 1px solid #555555;color: #000000;background-color: #f8f8f8; width:500px; }#advanced_iframe {visibility:visible;opacity:1;}#ai-layer-div-advanced_iframe p {height:100%;margin:0;padding:0}<\/style><script type=\"text\/javascript\">  var ai_iframe_width_advanced_iframe = 0;  var ai_iframe_height_advanced_iframe = 0;var aiIsIe8=false;var aiOnloadScrollTop=\"true\";\r\nif (typeof aiReadyCallbacks === 'undefined') {\r\n    var aiReadyCallbacks = [];  \r\n} else if (!(aiReadyCallbacks instanceof Array)) {\r\n    var aiReadyCallbacks = [];\r\n}    function aiShowIframeId(id_iframe) { jQuery(\"#\"+id_iframe).css(\"visibility\", \"visible\");    }    function aiResizeIframeHeight(height) { aiResizeIframeHeight(height,advanced_iframe); }    function aiResizeIframeHeightId(height,width,id) {aiResizeIframeHeightById(id,height);}<\/script><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"advanced_iframe\"  name=\"advanced_iframe\"  src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1230404227&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true\"  width=\"560\"  height=\"315\"  frameborder=\"0\"  border=\"0\"  allowtransparency=\"true\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"  style=\";width:560;height:315;\" ><\/iframe><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var ifrm_advanced_iframe = document.getElementById(\"advanced_iframe\");var hiddenTabsDoneadvanced_iframe = false;\r\nfunction resizeCallbackadvanced_iframe() {}function aiChangeUrl(loc) {}<\/script>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>TRANSCRIPT<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>BRANDY SCHLLACE: Hello and welcome back to the <em>Medical Humanities Podcast<\/em>. I\u2019m Brandy Schillace, Editor-in-Chief, and today I\u2019m here with one of our editorial board members, Stuart Murray. He\u2019s a Professor of Contemporary Lit and Film, and he\u2019s the Director of the Leeds Centre for Medical Humanities about to start a really fascinating project. Thank you for being with us, Stuart.<\/p>\n<p>STUART MURRAY: Thanks a lot for having me, Brandy.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: So, I know that you have been working on some really exciting things lately, and I was wondering if you want to give us a little bit of an update about the new project, the latest project that you\u2019ve just started?<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yes, we\u2019ve just started a new project at Leeds, which is a project centered around whole ideas to do with research and its development, specifically around health, space, objects, and technologies. So, it\u2019s called LivingBodiesObjects. And what\u2019s absolutely fantastic about it is we\u2019ve got the opportunity to do something which is genuinely a blank piece of paper. One of the things that we\u2019ve been told about from our funder, the Wellcome Trust, is that we can be as much as two years away from finding specific research questions for the project. And so, we\u2019ve got a three-year project in which we have two thirds of it, as I say, can be simply thinking about the very beginnings of the way in which research might address health questions. And so, it\u2019s hugely exciting because of that openness.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: That is actually really remarkable, because that is something you don\u2019t normally hear, right? Most of the time, you hear about research after it\u2019s already done. And so, I\u2019m fascinated by this project and the support that it\u2019s gained for looking into these issues and recognizing just how important the question process itself is.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yes, because with a lot of research, we always think we\u2019re kind of starting at the beginning. We might say, OK, we\u2019re gonna do some collaborative research. It\u2019s gonna be interdisciplinary. And because of that, it\u2019s going to be innovative. It\u2019s gonna be original. Here are our research questions, and then the research will start and follow a course. But the truth about that, of course, is that a lot of those words are already loaded with all sorts of assumptions about what the research process might be. So, if you say \u201ccollaborative\u201d or if you say \u201cinter-\u201d or \u201cmulti-disciplinary,\u201d you\u2019ve, actually, you\u2019re already working with pretty static and firm ideas of what subsequent research is possible.<\/p>\n<p>And what we\u2019re trying to do is to say, and sometimes it\u2019s kind of best formulated as a question, which would be, well, what if you had to start before that? You know, what if instead of saying, \u201cThis is where we begin with our different disciplines,\u201d you were saying, \u201cWell, where\u2019s the start before the start?\u201d How can you first set up a series of questions about what might constitute the very beginning of the research? And for me, that\u2019s kind of hugely exciting because even to say that is to bring into focus those very ideas of what we think is an original starting point. What is the originality of the research project that\u2019s gonna follow these questions?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: I mean, what do you do if you don\u2019t have those research questions in mind in the first place? How do you quantify where you\u2019re going to go? How do you record decision making? All of those things.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: What I find really fascinating about the concept of the questions before the questions is, to go back to your point about loaded terminology, right? One of the things we\u2019ve focused on so much at our journal is trying to create access and diversity and trying to make sure that we\u2019re providing spaces for people with disabilities, for people for whom English is not a first language, for people in the global South to have voices. And well, they already have voices, but to basically be able to actually get their words out in public where people can reach them. And we don\u2019t realize just how loaded so much of the terminology is, how inaccessible so much is to people. And it\u2019s partly because we don\u2019t even see that the terms and the nature of research already have all of these other parameters.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah. So, for example, some of the most thoughtful research that wants to improve equality, diversity, and inclusion will think about where it might go in the development of the research project. So, you might think that you\u2019re going to be starting with research questions, you\u2019re gonna be bringing in participants who will help you co-design the research. But you\u2019re absolutely right that, in many ways, that is a certain kind of formulation that already has a history and a standard practice. What it doesn\u2019t do, for example, is ask the question of, well, where might there be inclusion in the very first formulations of what the research might be? That point about the start before the start.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right?<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: How, in fact, when you\u2019re not, when you\u2019re doing a research project that doesn\u2019t involve setting up research questions, then where does access and inclusion go?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And I\u2019ve found that, in a way, what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re forcing ourselves to look at those questions. And what\u2019s fabulous about it is, I mean, from what we\u2019ve been saying, it sounds a bit like a kind of philosophy project that you can do just by sitting in your front room.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: [chuckles] Right.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: But at Leeds, we\u2019ve got a physical space, and we\u2019re developing ideas around virtual space. And in other words, we are literally putting ourselves in a lab space with all the traditions that labs come with and all that legacy of technological, historical, scientific thinking. And we\u2019re trying to begin those processes of thinking about how research starts through these ideas of space and through the ideas of the space between objects, for example.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, one way to put it is the ambition of the project lies in the imaginative creation of the spaces we\u2019re in and not in any preempting of the materials that they might produce.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Interesting. Yeah. I just recently had a podcast with Riva Lehrer, who wrote <em>Golem Girl<\/em>, and she is a disabled artist who, you know, and she talks in her book about the things that are invisible to people who are abled or who are just privileged in certain ways and all the ways that\u2014and actually, Alice Wong talks about this too\u2014all the ways that accessibility is often an afterthought. So, it\u2019s like, oh, we built the building. Now we need some ramps or we need an elevator or, you know. Instead of asking at the very beginning, \u201cHow could&#8230;. Why do we not involve disabled people in the process? What would be the questions they would ask? How would they look at a building plan in a completely different way?\u201d And so, Riva talks about this. Alice talks about this. Alyssa Burgart is another person we\u2019ve interviewed on the podcast. So, it strikes me that the type of research you\u2019re doing does many things that they were talking about, too, which is getting behind all of that and going, \u201cLet\u2019s not create the thing and then think about how to fix.\u201d [laughs] You know?<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah, that\u2019s a really lovely parallel, because in many ways, an interesting word you used there is \u201cthink.\u201d So, the idea is exactly as you cite: You don\u2019t make the building and then try to modify the building in order for it to be more accessible, and there are many good examples of where good work is done on that. But we\u2019re taking something similar and talking about the research project.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: That you don\u2019t even start the research project before, not so much even that you\u2019ve built those things in, but you\u2019ve asked what the questions might be.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And so, on our project, we\u2019ve got a series of partners who are gonna come into our lab as residents, and they are coming in with no expectations on them whatsoever. We\u2019ve got a theater company, we\u2019ve got a charity, we\u2019ve got two charities, actually: a learning disability charity based in York, in the UK, and the Bhopal Medical Appeal, which does so much to keep the news of the Bhopal disaster at the forefront of public thinking. And we\u2019re not kind of saying, \u201cHere we are as researcher. Do you want to join us because we\u2019re trying to answer these questions?\u201d We\u2019re interested in what happens when they help, not only, even before formulating the questions. We\u2019re kind of like, \u201cWell, what is it? What would you want to do? Who would you want to bring in?\u201d Even before we ask our partners how the research we might do together starts, we\u2019re kind of asking them to learn the research and asking them who would they want to bring in, in order to start thinking. So, this is a continual way, I think, in which we\u2019re trying to get behind. And that\u2019s so dynamic because it does allow you to ask some very, very kind of formative questions around health research, around the assumptions and the trajectories of health research.<\/p>\n<p>I was thinking earlier this morning about this, some really basic things about the assumption of the life narrative, the health narrative, assumptions around sort of listening to patients, assumptions around ethics, and to kind of go back before the first questions that you might ask about those when you\u2019re doing research and just kind of do some whys. I\u2019m really interested in the idea of listening, whether it\u2019s the best idea, for example. It\u2019s a kind of standard in lots of medical humanities research that what you need to do is listen to the patient. And well, just stop for a second and say why? Why is that? What are the benefits, but what are the constraints that come from that?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right, right.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And to kind of keep looking at those things that are given as givens and try different kinds of assumptions.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: That\u2019s a really important one, partly because, and we\u2019ve talked about this before as well, which is OK. So, listening to patients, it sounds easy to accept, right? Like, sure. Yeah, we listen. Of course. That sounds perfect. But in a situation where it\u2019s a medical provider and a patient having a dialogue, somebody has power, and somebody has a lot less power in that. It\u2019s not an equal relationship. And so, it\u2019s important to ask: How is this an unequal situation before it starts? What kind of conversation is possible if the&#8230;. I was thinking about this in terms of non-compliance. I wrote an article recently for <em>Wired <\/em>about this, if you\u2019re considered a non-compliant patient, but there\u2019s lots of reasons for non-compliance, right? Maybe you don\u2019t take your medicines \u2018cause you don\u2019t understand them.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Or maybe you mistrust the medical system. I\u2019m in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: [laughs] Yes.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: So, obviously, right? There\u2019s a lot of distrust. So, you create this situation where you say. \u201cYes, of course, listen to patients.\u201d But that conversation is never going to privilege the patient with, that patient\u2019s never gonna have power in that situation the way it might be envisioned, right? So, herein lies that importance of that question. What do we actually want to happen in that? Is it just about making the patient feel better, or do we actually wanna learn something? And if we wanna learn something, how might that dialogue have to change so that we could, so that medical providers and patients are on more equal footing? Is that even possible?<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah, exactly. I mean, a couple of things immediately come to mind. One is that, if we\u2019ve had decades now of listening to patients where we didn\u2019t have that before, let\u2019s look at the fact that there are still huge structural inequalities in health care. So, that\u2019s one of the things that seems like a kind of contradiction, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: We\u2019re doing more listening, but the structural problems remain. And the second one is I\u2019m getting really interested in the\u2014because we\u2019re doing quite a lot of work with virtual reality\u2014getting really interested in the way in which certain new virtual technologies want to help with conveying ideas of patient experience in kind of nontraditional ways. And one of the things I was looking at this morning, the suppliers of a certain kind of technology around body mapping and pain made the point that the average amount of time that a patient has in talking to a doctor before they\u2019re interrupted is 11 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, after 11 seconds, somebody comes in and starts to ask you questions before you\u2019ve probably even got to the end of what your second sentence and saying why you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, I\u2019m really interested in how&#8230;what that means for our very assumption that kind of listening is a good. And it\u2019s not, listening is one kind of example, isn\u2019t it? It kind of, it cascades out from that. There are certain decisions about the benefits of technology, the benefits of certain spaces. And I think to ask questions about that even before they\u2019re put into research questions around, say, technology, around narratives of medicine and life stories is to open up really kind of fascinating critical spaces and make demands. It leads you into unsettled, you know, unsettling places and difficult territory.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And that\u2019s, you know, it\u2019s enlightening and productive. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do. I mean, we\u2019re only, we\u2019re a month into the project, so it\u2019s lovely to have a conversation with you when we\u2019re at the start of the start before the start, if I can.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: [laughs] Well, I mean, isn\u2019t that just\u2014 We, you and I, have spoken about some assumptions that we make about journals themselves, right, and what a journal is for.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: And one of the nice things about <em>Medical Humanities<\/em>, if you\u2019re a new listener, we do have the podcast, we also have a blog that we run a bit like a magazine, almost, and then we have the journal itself. So, we have quite a lot of platforms and social media presence. And that means considering what a journal does and figuring out if there\u2019s new and better ways that journals can be part of research.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yes. I mean, one of the great things about the journal is the way in which it\u2019s expand expanded out through the blogs and the podcasts to try and say, we\u2019re getting away from the idea that a journal is simply a space for the publication of academic outputs, yeah. There are other ways to phrase, to express, and to convey the kind of work that\u2019s going on around medical humanities research.<\/p>\n<p>But at the same time, I mean, I think what\u2019s potentially quite exciting about LivingBodiesObjects is the idea of a project that\u2019s a month old starting a conversation with a kind of sector-leading journal, which one way or another, is most well-known for publishing outputs.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right. [chuckles]<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: I mean, the very question of like there\u2019s a why there, isn\u2019t it? Why would you do that? But of course, you do that because the journal is interested in medical humanities research, right?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right, exactly.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And this is medical humanities research. So, to me, and I know to you, \u2018cause we\u2019ve discussed this before this, there\u2019s such an opportunity there, almost like for a journal that you would associate with outputs to follow the trajectory of a research project that has a fantastic amount of space not to worry about producing outputs but is still focused on research.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right. Well, and I think, too, there\u2019s a transparency here. And transparency and social justice, right, are partners often because if you\u2019re watching the way the research itself takes place and you\u2019re sharing that widely, then you\u2019re also inviting more perspectives to comment on what that perspective and what that trajectory might be. And so, I think there\u2019s an inclusivity built in to a project that can collaborate with a platform, with a platform like this one. And so, I\u2019m really excited, and we\u2019re planning, I think, I hope, to keep checking in on the project as it develops to be part of that because there\u2019s a real chance to share this in ways that reflect exactly what it is that your project is most, the types of things that your project is interested in.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah. I mean, I think there\u2019s a couple of things. Some of our listeners will say, \u201cWell, hang on. You\u2019re claiming this is a blank piece of paper. In fact, you\u2019re funded by one of the major funders of medical humanities research in the world, the Wellcome Trust.\u201d So, it\u2019s not exactly like we haven\u2019t been part of a system which has made this possible. That\u2019s true. There\u2019s no two ways about that. But at the same time, the kind of hands-off element that we\u2019ve been lucky enough to receive as we\u2019ve been developing the research is very true. It\u2019s very noticeable. And one example of that, I think, is the conversation we\u2019re having now, Brandy, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s serendipitous. I mean, you and I, in some cases, we were talking about something else, and this project came up.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: [chuckles]<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And then it was like, OK, well, this sounds interesting. I hadn\u2019t thought about the possibility of this kind of relationship between LivingBodiesObjects and the journal until we started to plan today. And I think that the transparency, inclusivity, serendipity is a good friend to those. Because\u2014<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: \u2014because it\u2019s not, you know, if I were to say to you, \u201ccollaborative research, multidisciplinary research,\u201d these things have, already have their own spatial metaphors working, don\u2019t they? They already have a sense of the in-between or the across, and they can be very, very centered around exclusion.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: I like serendipity because it opens up the chance to make spaces for being inclusive and pursuing justice as you put it. It\u2019s a really interesting word, \u201cjustice,\u201d I think, in relation to allowing yourself to let conversations happen.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: And also challenging yourself about how you listen and in what ways you listen.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yes. No, that is so important to us because one of the things that we found was really dynamic when we started setting the project up was something that I think quite a few researchers might think is anything but dynamic. And that would be, for example, data management. Yeah?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, most people maybe, who work in medical humanities would think, OK, I know what data management is. I might need to get ethics clearance to do the things I want to do. I might need to find a way to appropriately archive the data that my project will produce. But when we went to the data management team at Leeds, they were so interested in this. And one of the things they said was, \u201cWell, how are you gonna capture the outcomes of your very first conversations?\u201d So, nothing to do with whether you need ethics clearance or not, or whether you\u2019re going to produce sensitive data. Your very, very first conversations, can they be captured in any way? And this was such a kind of wonderful thing to think about. So, we\u2019re gonna have on the project a postdoc with experience in kind of highly innovative and original project capture.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And we\u2019re thinking of anything from cartoons to the more regular things such as journals, filmmaking, photography. But there are so many possibilities to think. And this is a genuine research question, isn\u2019t it: How do you capture decision making?<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Yes. Well, it\u2019s almost an ethnography of the whole project, isn\u2019t it? I mean, in a way.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: It could well be. These are the words that float around, isn\u2019t it? And then&#8230;. And yeah, it\u2019s a good word in a certain kind of ethnography, I think, would be a good way to put it. But I find there\u2019s so much that, there\u2019s so much thought that gets prompted from asking a question like that: how to capture the conversations around the very origins of the research and not just what the research produces.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right. Right. Because\u2014<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: In terms of thinking about decision making. Because the decisions that might be made after a series of interviews, maybe, with a community to do with health or to do with disability, the kinds of questions you\u2019re going to ask, that sort of thing is not what we\u2019re talking about. We\u2019re talking about the very first decisions we made at the very start of the project to base an inquiry around objects and bodies and the spaces in between them. What might be possible if you try and theorize or configure those so that the decisions to do that, to try to capture that, to archive it, to think about what it might mean, it\u2019s tremendously exciting.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: It is. And I used to work in a medical history museum, and I\u2019ve done a lot of work with museum specialists and curators. And so, it strikes me that there\u2019s a kind of curation that\u2019s going on here. And one of the questions that was asked a lot by museum professionals is another why before the why: What do we mean by curate? Who gets to curate? What gets chosen and what doesn\u2019t get chosen and why? And so, to me, this is like, I\u2019m mentally perceiving this as an almost a sort of online exhibition, an online, virtually curated kind of example of how research gets done that\u2019s trying to be as inclusive and expansive as possible, while also recognizing that you can never get all the way underneath anything. And I think that that\u2019s something that\u2019s important too.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: I think you\u2019ve made the absolute right spot because it\u2019s interesting that we have four planned six-months residencies with our partners, and the final one is with the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds, which is the largest specific medical museum in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mm!<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, there you have it. So, we\u2019re leading up to a partnership with, exactly as you say, a medical museum where much of what they do is think about curating objects. So, we really hope that after two and a half years, we\u2019re able to approach them with a really developed and innovative sense of what to curate means.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And then to see what they make of that and how they want to interact with that. And yes, it could be online. I mean, it could be pop-ups. It could be all sorts of things.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Could be podcasts. [laughs]<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: It could be podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right here!<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: There could be lots of podcasts. It could be a podcast every month now that we\u2019ve started. And what\u2019s so exciting about that, I think, is to\u2014and this is absolutely key, I think, from what we\u2019ve done even in the last few weeks\u2014is to say, what\u2019s the physical space expression of that? Place an object, an object from a medical museum, in the center of a room without preconditions. Invite people to move around it, to reflect on it without preconditions. Think of all the interesting sort of highly dynamic things that would come from that. But then the pandemic and lockdowns have reminded us that our project actually fits with thinking virtually.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Because there are so many, you know, well, to be even specific, there are so many new health platforms that will use kind of VR ways of accessing the body, of rethinking the body that suddenly, we realize that our idea of objects and living bodies\u2014those words in our title\u2014are incredibly dynamic when thought of in virtual space.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Well, and think, too, about the issues of accessibility around virtual space. And particularly, I mean, the pandemic has only made it clearer, but disabled people, disabled activists, disabled bodies, they have different ability to access things, right? And so, one thing that has come about is the ability to go to conferences virtually, which for some people, I have a friend who has severe migraines and they\u2019re quite debilitating, and she can\u2019t go to conferences. But if you are at a virtual conference and you have a migraine, you can lie down, you can come back to it, you can. Some of them are actually captured so that you can return to them later. If you have a compromised immune system and you can\u2019t fly around to visit these places or you can\u2019t take classes the way a normal person\u2014\u201dnormal\u201d is the wrong word there. Sorry\u2014if you can\u2019t take classes the way an abled person might be able to because of various accessibility issues and timing and all sorts of other things or because you need transportation, suddenly, all that becomes, there is a possibility of leveling with virtual space. But it doesn\u2019t automatically level. It doesn\u2019t automatically create accessibility. And I think that\u2019s really important, too, because virtual space isn\u2019t just, you don\u2019t snap your fingers and go, \u201cThere. Now everyone\u2019s equal. Now we\u2019ve created equity.\u201d It actually has to be designed that way.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: I think, I mean, you\u2019ve absolutely hit on it there, that there has been, I think, huge strides made and to some degree, a sense of surprise, particularly in the non-disabled world, academic world, about how conferences and events have functioned in exactly the kind of way that you\u2019re saying there. And of course, not just thinking about your point about social justice, not just for disabled communities, but for example, I went to a fantastic conference where people from Indigenous communities from all around the world were able to attend in a way that would\u2019ve been impossible if they were in a physical space.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: But as you say, there are undoubted benefits of this. But there\u2019s also maybe certain assumptions that what constitutes access in the virtual world is, yeah, is kind of free at the point of entry, and it\u2019s not. So, we\u2019re trying to balance thinking about that. I mean, to go back to our starting point about, say, academic health research. So often, you might say, right, we\u2019re going to invite people with disabilities onto the university for conversations and tell them about our research project and go from there. But for a lot of people, a lot of people don\u2019t want to come into a university. They don\u2019t feel comfortable in those kind of spaces. And so, that can really change the dynamic of the research that you\u2019re planning to do. If you\u2019re trying to bring people to you and their being able to work virtually, I think, is hugely exciting, has got huge potential if you\u2019re able to get the technology to the people. And that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been lucky enough to do. We\u2019re able to get hold of technology that\u2014kind of VR headsets and the like\u2014that we can take to the very people we want to communicate with.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: And we can say, \u201cWhat do you think the founding questions for how we\u2019re thinking about the relationship between bodies and health spaces and technologies, what do you think they should be?\u201d And we go from there.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Right, right. Well, I think this is really fascinating. And we\u2019re gonna go ahead and wrap up now, but I know we\u2019re gonna be revisiting this project soon. Where can people find out more? I believe you have a website, right?<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: We don\u2019t have a website yet, because what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re moving to, I mean, so, we started a month ago. And just this week, we\u2019ve set up our Twitter account, which is @LBObjects.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: LBObjects, OK.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, people can find us there. And we\u2019re planning for a launch of the project officially in May.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Excellent.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: I mean, one thing we\u2019re saying about that is we are, even within the project, we\u2019re having to start before the start.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: [laughs]<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: So, we don\u2019t start working with our partners until June.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Mm, mmhmm.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Because we didn\u2019t just want to invite people into a blank space without having thought about what that space might be. So, we\u2019re working with creative artists and technologists to give us a set of thoughts that we can bring to our official opening in May. And that\u2019s where we are at the moment. The website will be in place then. But for the time being, we\u2019re trying to capture the work we\u2019re doing through a series of tweets. We hope we\u2019ll be making quite a few every week.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Fascinating. Well, I will try to make sure that we get our MH handle to follow you, and I will certainly look for it myself with @BSchillace. So, it has been so wonderful to have you on, Stuart. Again, really, really appreciate this. If you could just remind everybody one more time, the title of the project is?<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: LivingBodiesObjects: Technologies\u2014<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: LivingBodies.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Yeah, LivingBodiesObjects.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Love it.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Health in the space of technologies. But it\u2019s LivingBodiesObjects with no spaces between the words.<\/p>\n<p>SCHILLACE: Nice. I like it. This is fantastic. Again, thank you for joining us. Thank you for being part of this. And I look forward to seeing what this collaboration gives us in the future.<\/p>\n<p>MURRAY: Thanks to you, and thanks to the journal\u2019s interest, Brandy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Podcast with Brandy Schillace and Stuart Murray LivingBodiesObjects is a 3-year project funded by the Wellcome Trust designed to test and extend the boundaries of Medical Humanities research. Wellcome\u2019s\u00a0three-year development grant will be used to further understand the relationship between the human body and technologies associated with health and disability. At the same time, the [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2022\/03\/17\/livingbodiesobjects-with-stuart-murray\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15029],"tags":[15058],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcasts","tag-podcasts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>LivingBodiesObjects with Stuart Murray - Medical Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"LivingBodiesObjects is a 3-year project funded by the Wellcome Trust designed to test and extend the boundaries of Medical Humanities research. 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