Deconstructing Devices at MAE Vienna

At the Medical Anthropology Europe Conference (MAE Conference) 2025 in Vienna, Alice Street and Millie Marriott Webb ran a workshop titled: Deconstructing Devices: A practical laboratory in medical plastics. Twenty participants deconstructed a malaria rapid diagnostic test and a safety catheter for an IV infusion set, examined their material and chemical contents and explored methods for tracing their lifecycles. 

Lab Summary:

What is in a medical device? The technological device looms large in medical anthropology. From ultrasound scanners (2022) to contraceptive auto-injectors (MacDonald and Foley 2022) to rapid diagnostic tests (Beisel et al 2016), anthropologists have found devices to be useful objects to follow, critique and analytically deconstruct. But what would we find out if we actually deconstructed them, as in: materially disassembled them, investigated their physical components and analysed their chemical ingredients? This laboratory invites participants to practically engage with a specific sub-set of medical devices: the single-use plastic device. The health industry is one of the largest growing markets for plastics and a major contributor to global plastic waste and carbon emissions. Yet the presence of single-use plastic devices in places of medicine and public health is largely taken for granted. This laboratory aims to equip participants with the practical skills to examine what plastic medical devices are made from, investigate where they came from, and consider the damage they might do after they are used and discarded. In doing so, we hope to open up new ways of seeing and relating to medical devices in anthropology, and initiate a discussion about material methods of critique.