Mads Solberg
University of Bergen, Department of Social Anthropology, Graduate Student
- Aquaculture, Cognitive Ethnography, Cognitive Anthropology, Technology transfer, Ecological Anthropology, Cognitive Science, and 14 moreMultimodality, Natural Resource Management, Historiography, Environmental Anthropology, Anthropology of Science, Ethnographic Methods, Middle East Anthropology, Evolution and Human Behavior, Edwin Hutchins, Dan Sperber, History of Domestication, History of Science, Anthropology, and Philosophy of Scienceedit
- My PHD-project investigates knowledge-making and technological innovation within marine science; in particular the de... moreMy PHD-project investigates knowledge-making and technological innovation within marine science; in particular the development of novel solutions for managing sea lice, a persistent threat to salmon farming in Norway.
Broader research interests gravitate around: social dimensions of aquaculture and marine domestication, technology transfer, cognitive, environmental and evolutionary anthropology, as well as the anthropological study of science.
Naturalistic theories of cultural transmission and the toolkit of the cognitive sciences offer exciting avenues for anthropological research on how different communities of practice create knowledge. In particular I'm exploring how the framework of distributed cognition can help us understand how scientific knowledge is crafted through the orchestratration of coupled human-technological systems in the experimental life sciences.
I approach scientific innovation in marine science through a method known as cognitive ethnography. Cognitive ethnography involves participant observation and detailed multimodal interactional analysis of digital video in order to understand complex human activity systems.
I had the good fortune to spend the winter quarter 2014 in Professor Edwin Hutchins and Jim Hollan's D-COG HCI-lab at the Department of Cognitive Science, University of California - San Diego. The people here are at the forefront in the shift in cognitive science toward "a view of cognition as a property of systems that are larger than isolated individuals. This extends the reach of cognition to encompass interactions between people as well as interactions with resources in the environment" (including their material culture). This excellent community strengthened my belief that rigourous anthropological research is a crucial scientific contribution to charting and understanding such dynamics.
My masters degree from 2011 was on the management and politics of forest conservation through protected areas in post-war Lebanon. I did my first fieldwork among the Druze and Christian denizens of the Shouf-mountains.edit
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Immersive virtual reality (VR)-based exercise video games (exergames) are increasingly being employed as a supportive intervention in rehabilitation programs to promote engagement in physical activity, especially for elderly users. A... more
Immersive virtual reality (VR)-based exercise video games (exergames) are increasingly being employed as a supportive intervention in rehabilitation programs to promote engagement in physical activity, especially for elderly users. A multifaceted and iterative codesign process is essential to develop sustainable exergaming solutions. The social aspect is considered one of the key motivating factors in exergames; however, research on the social aspect of VR exergames has been limited. Previous studies have relied on competitiveness in exergames, but research has shown that competition can lead to adverse effects on users. With the aim of motivating elderly individuals to participate in physical exercise and improving social connectedness during rehabilitation, this work presents a social VR-based collaborative exergame codesigned with elderly participants and therapists. This exergame stimulates full-body exercise and supports social collaboration among users through a collaborative ...
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Background The COVID-19 pandemic has seen unprecedented growth in the use of interactive technologies in care facilities for social contact between residents and their close contacts due to the need for social distancing. As the pandemic... more
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has seen unprecedented growth in the use of interactive technologies in care facilities for social contact between residents and their close contacts due to the need for social distancing. As the pandemic is transitioning into a new phase, there is a need to critically examine the new practices associated with technology usage. Objective Our analysis is based on a case study of how a care facility in western Norway adopted a novel technology called KOMP. We empirically investigate the stability of practices with KOMP for maintaining social communication between residents and their relatives and consider whether these practices are likely to last beyond the pandemic. We draw on normalization process theory (NPT) to interpret our findings and critically examine how stable embedding of new technologies for social communication occurs under extraordinary circumstances. Methods We conducted a case study based on participant observation and interviews, and...
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Background Digital tools for social communication have been deployed in care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate social connectedness between older people and their next of kin in a safe manner. This study explores how... more
Background Digital tools for social communication have been deployed in care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate social connectedness between older people and their next of kin in a safe manner. This study explores how and why health care professionals facilitate the ad hoc and prompt use of a technology for social communication, known as KOMP, in care facilities in western Norway to promote communication and social engagement among residents and their next of kin during the crisis. Methods To investigate the perspectives and practices of health care professionals, we conducted focus groups, individual interviews, and participant observation in public short- and long-term care facilities in western Norway. An explorative investigation with inductive content analysis was applied to analyse interview transcripts and fieldnotes from participant observation. Results The resulting qualitative data reveal that prompt implementation of interactive technology to cope with ...