Differentiation and displacement: Unpicking the relationship between accounts of illness and social structure

This article seeks to unpack the relationship between social structure and accounts of illness. Taking dentine hypersensitivity as an example, this article explores the perspective that accounts of illness are sense-making processes that draw on a readily available pool of meaning. This pool of meaning is composed of a series of distinctions that make available a range of different lines of communication and action about such conditions. Such lines of communication are condensed and preserved over time and are often formed around a concept and its counter concept. The study of such processes is referred to as semantic analysis and involves drawing on the tools and techniques of conceptual history. This article goes on to explore how the semantics of dentine hypersensitivity developed. It illustrates how processes of social differentiation led to the concept being separated from the more dominant concept of dentine sensitivity and how it was medicalised, scientised and economised. In short, this study seeks to present the story of how society has developed a specific language for communicating about sensitivity and hypersensitivity in teeth. In doing so, it proposes that accounts of dentine hypersensitivity draw on lines of communication that society has preserved over time

Prison Cell Spaces, Bodies and Touch

The prison cell is both a concrete place experienced by physical bodies and an imagined room that we meet in fiction, films and, also more recently, via penal tourism (Turner 2013). The prison cell symbolises penalty (Foucault 1977) and is, in classic penological literature, considered to be the most intimate and private space within the prison where the prisoner rests, sleeps, eats and is alone with their thoughts (Gramsci 1947). Through Jean-Luc Nancy’s (2008) concept of touching, this chapter disrupts traditional understandings of the prison cell as an isolated unit within the prison by exploring various prison cells, their boundaries and extensions. The analysis is facilitated by material generated through a comparative study in two female prisons in Italy and Norway and highlights three spaces crucially related to the cell: inside cell spaces, corridor spaces and threshold spaces. Grosz’ (1994) concept of bodies in-place and out-of-place helps to highlight the cultural meanings connected to embodied practices in various prison cell spaces and how such prison cell spaces touch and are touched by female bodies. The intention with this chapter is to develop an analytical optic regarding the relationship between prison cell spaces, bodies and touch. Touch, within this analytical gaze, is not just a concept we use to analyse the material conducted, but is crucial for us as researchers as we ‘touch’ and are ‘touched by’ our research field through our mode of study and the classifications and concepts we use. In this way, the chapter explores prison cells by putting ontological and epistemological questions at the core of the analysis. The first section of the chapter introduces the analytical framework related to sensuous architecture and the philosophy of touch. In the second section, we introduce the context and our methodological strategy; and, in the third, we present the analysis of three spaces intrinsic to the prison cell: inside cell spaces, corridor spaces and threshold spaces and their relationship with touch

The Role of Universities in Building Dense Triple Helix Ecosystems in Sparse Regional Environments

University-industry-government relationships driving regional innovation are often discussed by using the shorthand of the ‘triple helix’, referring to any arena where these partners come together. This rapid expansion of the idea’s use risks it becoming a ‘policy concept’ whilst potential tensions of collaboration can be ignored. Instead of ‘happy family stories’ of well-functioning regional partnerships, we seek to explore how triple helix mechanisms may stimulate regional innovation systems in places that have traditionally not had a long history of collaboration. Whilst universities are often dominant drivers of innovation in these ‘sparse’ regional innovation ecosystems, they may not be fit to respond to the identified regional needs. We address this by using empirics from five regions with relatively sparse triple helix environments and present evidence on the ways in which the universities have sought to play the role of tertius gaudens—honest broker—helping to address the stalemates that emerge between partners with very different goals, norms, values and intentions around regional innovation. We identified several processes through which universities can play this role and thereby contribute to densifying sparse innovation environments, increasing agglomeration and diversity whilst helping to address the tensions and problems that densification brings