Making Meanings of the Body: What Cyborg Narratives Reveal About Prosthetic Limb Adoption and Use

In my project, I speak with 20 prosthesis-users, adapting timeline analysis alongside photo-elicitation and semi-structured interviews to examine participants’ cyborg narratives, the stories of how their use of these intimate technologies is integrated into their narratives of self. I ask two questions: RQ1) How do people who use prosthetic limbs relate to those objects as assistive technologies that have functional, aesthetic, and social features? RQ2) What do narratives of prosthetic limb adoption tell us about what these objects mean to their users? Through my analysis, I found that my participants view their prostheses primarily as tools whose use is determined by their ability to fulfill needs for efficiency and comfort. While users’ aesthetic desires vary widely, these preferences are important, enabling performances of gender and impacting one’s sense of self-presentation. Prosthesis use also facilitates community building and advocacy behaviors wherein prostheses act as conversation-starters with other amputees as well as the public and professional experts alike. By examining these aspects of prosthesis use through a narrative lens, one can see how these objects are meaningful to their users, not simply items that they use but intimate technologies that hold personal and social significance. While the photo-elicitation completed provided tangible grounding for the interviews as we discussed technological advancements and changes made between each prosthesis a participant used over their lives, the narrative approach further provided emotional resonance, helping underline not just the technicalities of technological changes but the salience and meaning of these changes in the lives of the participants. Thus, I argue for the continued application of visual and narrative approaches to exploring technology use over time to focus on the experiences of technology use and how technologies, especially assistive technologies, hold personal and social meaning to their users. Through this project, I highlight how the experiences and desires of users focus on the importance of a neutral experience (rather than one focused on going “above and beyond” expectations), and how these goals differ from those expected by non-amputees. This underlines the importance of centering user perspectives in the design of all assistive technologies.