Chronic Pain Beyond Measure: E-Health and the Politics of Pain Care

Abstract

This is a project about chronic pain. It explores the codes, contracts, and covenants that patients living with chronic pain enter as they try to feel better. What is unique about this study of chronic pain is the focus on e-health: the use of digital technologies in health. Therefore, more narrowly, this is a project about how the digitalization of healthcare impacts people living with chronic pain. From immersive serious games to symptom tracking applications to facial coding systems that detect pain via patterns of expression, digital technologies are increasingly touted as capable of solving long-standing challenges to treating people with chronic pain. However, these tools introduce novel issues and questions about chronic pain, technology, and justice in medicine. This dissertation describes the emergence of digitality in chronic pain medicine, the ideological backdrop of this paradigm, and how technoscientific practices impact the lives of people living with chronic pain in Canada. The findings of this research rely on qualitative data and theoretical analysis. Between 2022 and 2023, I conducted interviews with people living with chronic pain across Canada, a pain specialist, and the CEO of a popular pain tracking application. I also conducted participant observation at a multimodal chronic pain clinic. This data is theoretically triangulated at the intersection of science studies, philosophy, and critical feminist scholarship. However, research on pain within the humanities is extensive. Historical, anthropological, and arts-based work also informs the discussion and analysis.