Jane Dickson

Biography

Jane completed her undergraduate degree in Visual Anthropology at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA (summa cum laude) and then returned to the UK to undertake an MA (honors) and PhD in the Material, Visual and Digital Culture section of the Anthropology department at University College London. For her MA, she worked with the Transition Towns Network, examining how members construct their visual culture, particularly through film, websites and imagery. For her PhD, fieldwork was conducted with a Local Authority Sustainability Team who retrofitted social housing with green (living) roofs to mitigate against a changing climate. The multi-sited ethnography also involved networking round a group of greenroofers, including ecologists, DIYers, policy makers and builders. This resulted in a thesis examining how applicable Gibson's affordance theory might be to the production of ecological utopias (Ecotopias). Following this, Jane worked as a Research Officer on the Delivering Digital Drugs (D3) Project. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ddd3/ This was an interdisciplinary, EPSRC funded project examining the digitization of medicines. Using concepts such as digital materiality, the project examined the way medicines are becoming more and more digitalized, embedded in and constituted by rich and rapidly changing data technologies and ecosystems. Jane's focus was on: warfarin as a 'digital drug'; the British National Formulary's (BNF) and apps for monitoring medications. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ddd3/ in Delivering Digital Drugs (D3) Project and http://ejdickson6.wixsite.com/thewarfarinproject in Warfarin as a 'digital drug'. In addition, Jane has completed a series of short research contracts including design and user research to understand how one London park can adapt to changes for the future. The final report was published by NESTA as part of their Rethinking Parks Project. 

Research Interest

Research Interests include: Visual culture; medical anthropology; video reflexive ethnography; intersections between art, medicine and anthropology; ethnography, development of qualitative methods, sustainability; Utopias and Ecotopias; urban anthropology. Jane is primarily a material and visual culture specialist, viewing the relationship between people and the material world as one of reciprocity. How we make and build, use, cherish and dispose of materials and objects both reflects what we think and believe and, in turn, constructs us as persons, communities and societies. Underlying assumptions about the world are reflected in the practices and infrastructures we build and use. My current work focuses this perspective towards the reflexive use of video in healthcare improvement.  The Video Reflexive Ethnography study aims to identify and make visible good safety practices within Acute Medical Units through the use of ethnographic techniques. Video feedback sessions enable clinicians to co-construct improved working practices which mitigate risks and enhance patient safety.