Bringing Care and Maintenance Under the Same Skin: Deep Brain Stimulation and Temporalities of Care

By following a posthumanist and Science, Technology and Society approach, this study analyzes technological care in deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease. The results are based on a survey of implanted patients with PD in Greece. I stress that, in implantation, the issue of functionality is paramount, but it also involves a “dance of agency”, an interplay of actors and actants, while the “liveliness” of the technological parts imposes temporal and spatial constraints. I distinguish and analyze three modes of technological care that I encountered in the field, related to tuning, maintaining and disentangling the cyborg bodymind. I argue, finally, that these practices expand the territory of care, blurring its boundaries with maintenance.