A hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions in low-income households - mobile phones for improved managed health care as test case

摘要

In this article the authors, a philosopher and a social development practitioner, formulaterecommendations for responsible planning of technical interventions in health carerelations under circumstances of uncertainty and moral risk. It is proposed that thehermeneutic approach followed in this article could serve as a heuristic guide to researchand development teams in the planning phase of similar projects to proceed in aresponsible manner. The introduction of mobile phone technology by a managed healthcare service provider to clients from a low-income South African context is used as a testcase to illustrate the value of the proposed heuristic approach. The strength of thisapproach is situated in its coordination of general anthropological considerations, withinterpretative attention to particularities. The test case is a relevant to the problem sinceit cannot be assumed that the same habitus of acquaintance with the mobile phoneapparatus has been formed in the low-income South African context as in contexts orsocieties where people have been using telephones for decades.