Divine Fuh

The workshop aims at proposing new ethnographic methodological and conceptual tools to think and imagine the “hospital of the future” in Africa, in particular, the way artificial intelligence (AI) seeks to transform and is currently transforming access to health care in hospitals today and in the coming years. Our project aims to build a problematization of the hospital of the future and an ethnographic method to critically analyze the ethical, regulatory, and political issues with respect to AI, healthcare, and hospitals on the continent. We consider the ‘hospital of the future’ ‘ through the digitalization and computer-automation of healthcare ‘ as a global promise that needs to be challenged by ethnographic methods within hospitals, engaging with persons interacting with them.
Among the key questions, we wish to ask are the following: What kinds of hospitals will we need, and what will they look like? How are representations of the hospital of the future transcribed in various locations in Africa? How will AI affect the hospital infrastructure, medical and care work, and hospital ethnography? What kind of regulatory mechanisms and policy instruments is being developed? How can anthropology/ethnography contribute to the public debate and ethical reflection on AI and hospitals?