Lab

Vitalities Lab


About the lab

Webpage: https://csrh.arts.unsw.edu.au/research/areas/vitalities-lab/

Blog: https://vitalitieslab.com/

Featured research (70)

The autistic-led project ‘Autistic Supports for Comfort, Care and Connection’ explores how autistic adults employ a range of objects, services and creatures to support their wellbeing. The study’s findings offer insights into the everyday and creative ways that autistic people understand, (re)imagine and engage with non-human support activities, practices and things. For the study, 12 autistic Australians were interviewed online by project lead Dr Megan Rose. Nine participants identified as cis women, one as non-binary, one as a trans woman and one as a cis man. The interview questions asked participants about the kinds of supports (other than people) they use as part of their everyday lives: e.g., for entertainment and leisure, connection with others, cultivating a special interest, dealing with burnout or sensory challenges, and promoting health and wellbeing. Finally, we asked them to imagine the ideal new support to best fit their needs. We commissioned autistic graphic illustrator Sarah Firth to draw ‘portraits’ of each participant using words and images to depict the challenges they face, the supports they use to help them cope with these challenges, and their special interests. Sarah was provided with the anonymised interview transcripts to create the portraits. To protect the participants’ identity, she did not know what the participants looked like. We asked her to use her imagination to create the portraits based only on the information in the transcripts. The age and ethnicity of the participants as represented may therefore look a little different from the participants’ actual characteristics. This booklet presents Sarah’s portraits together with narratives for each participant we distilled from the interviews as a way to tell their stories. Each participant has been given a pseudonym instead of their real name.
In recent times, the micro-video sharing platform TikTok has become extremely popular globally, especially among young people. Psychological and medical topics are among the diverse array of issues addressed on TikTok, sometimes sparking controversies over how “accurate” or helpful the information is. One such issue concerns TikTok content relating to self-diagnosis of neurodivergent conditions such as autism and ADHD. A dominant portrayal of this phenomenon focuses on the possibilities for self-optimisation such diagnoses can offer. In this article, we discuss these issues from a sociomaterial perspective, recognising the gatherings of humans, digital platforms, content, and the affective and relational connections that comprise TikTok assemblages. Digital sociology is brought together with health sociology and the sociology of diagnosis to explore how TikToks about self-diagnosis of ADHD and autism contribute to broader discourses and practices related to self-optimisation. In particular, the socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of health and identity issues on TikTok are highlighted. We delve into the contestations over power and authority as they receive expression both in Tik- Toks and off the platform in medical/“psy” apparatuses of expertise. In so doing, both the possibilities and the limitations for digitised and algorithmic self-optimisation related to self-diagnosis via digital media are identified.
I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with creative methods over the past few years, drawing on arts- and design-based approaches. I’ve put together a booklet that showcases 13 of these methods. Each page features one method, providing a brief overview and an example from studies and public research engagement and translation activities I’ve conducted with my collaborators. The methods are: creative writing prompts, collages, story completion, zines, poetic inquiry, AI generated images, storyboards, exhibitions, dioramas, films, walking methods, participatory mapping, speculative design.
There has been great interest in the potential for generative AI and large language models (LLMs), and ChatGPT in particular, to contribute to the fields of medicine and public health. This position paper provides a brief overview of the literature that has been published on the potential uses and benefits of these tools for medical and public health applications. It discusses how social researchers can contribute to analyses and assessments of these applications, particularly in relation to the lived experiences of those who use them in healthcare settings or at home, including consideration of patients, clinicians and other healthcare workers. The paper also discusses impacts on the workers who train and process the data used for these novel technologies and calls for an expanded perspective that acknowledges the impacts of the development and use of generative AI and LLMs on planetary health.

Lab head

Deborah Lupton
Department
  • Centre for Social Research in Health
About Deborah Lupton
  • I am a sociologist who has researched topics relating to medicine and public health, risk, the body, the emotions, parenting culture, food and eating, fat politics, the unborn and digital health. My current research focuses on digital sociology and the use of new digital media technologies in medicine and public health. I am also interested in 'live sociology', or creative and inventive methods for sociological research, and in using social and other digital media for academic purposes.

Members (5)

Clare Southerton
  • Monash University (Australia)
Ash Watson
  • UNSW Sydney
Marianne Clark
  • University of Waikato
Megan Rose
  • UNSW Sydney
Leanne Downing
  • RMIT University