David Nicholls

Interest in posthuman concepts and ideas, philosophies and theories has grown enormously over the last 25 years, and posthumanism is now one of the most vibrant and innovative frontiers in healthcare thinking. At its most basic, posthumanism is a philosophical approach that decentres the human and considers other non-human or more-than-human objects as equally important. But this description belies the many challenges posthumanism presents to the researcher. There are many competing approaches to consider, there is often opaque language to navigate, and there are many structural problems to overcome. In this paper we tackle three major methodological challenges: vitalism, or the question of what gives life to things; transcendence, and the substance problem; and correlation, or latent anthropocentrism. We consider how it might be possible to research with a process-based ontology in a world dominated by substance-based principles. And we conclude with four related recommendations: a focus on key principles, concept creation, deep reading and attention to ontological slippage, before reflecting on our own experiences researching walking for people living with persistent pain.

Persistent pain is the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide. Research into pain experiences often adopts a humanistic perspective, predominantly relying on interview data and rarely engaging with real-world contexts. The Posthuman Walking Project brought together a transdisciplinary network of individuals with lived experiences of pain alongside academics and clinicians from five countries to collectively explore how posthuman philosophies might challenge human-centered paradigms. Specifically, we used mobile phone video footage to investigate the more-than- human entanglements of walking in the landscape when experiencing pain. This paper reflects on our engagement with the uncertainty and multifaceted nature of exploratory methods and how the process of “becoming posthuman” did not follow a pre-determined path. We outline our rhizomatic methodological approach, emphasizing the contributions of walker-partners, project development meetings, and the value of allowing methods to remain responsive and emergent. Finally, we discuss the complexities of studying the assemblage of humans, walking, pain, and landscape, illuminating the transformative potential of posthuman frameworks in understanding lived experiences of pain.

Persistent pain is the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide. Research into pain experiences often adopts a humanistic perspective, predominantly relying on interview data and rarely engaging with real-world contexts. The Posthuman Walking Project brought together a transdisciplinary network of individuals with lived experiences of pain alongside academics and clinicians from five countries to collectively explore how posthuman philosophies might challenge human-centered paradigms. Specifically, we used mobile phone video footage to investigate the more-than- human entanglements of walking in the landscape when experiencing pain. This paper reflects on our engagement with the uncertainty and multifaceted nature of exploratory methods and how the process of “becoming posthuman” did not follow a pre-determined path. We outline our rhizomatic methodological approach, emphasizing the contributions of walker-partners, project development meetings, and the value of allowing methods to remain responsive and emergent. Finally, we discuss the complexities of studying the assemblage of humans, walking, pain, and landscape, illuminating the transformative potential of posthuman frameworks in understanding lived experiences of pain.

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) was very much a man of his time—an eminent Victorian philosopher and theologian who formed part of an influential Romantic movement in literature, art, and architecture. A central figure in the Tractarian movement of the 1830s and 1840s, he reasserted the Catholic doctrines and practices of the Church of England against the strongly Erastian tendencies of the time, and the culmination of these ideas led to what was perhaps his most notorious work, "Tract 90," in which he claimed that the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England could be interpreted from a Catholic viewpoint. In 1845 he was received into the Roman Catholic church, and since his "rediscovery" by fellow Catholics after the First World War there has been a well-organized campaign for his canonization as a saint. Newman’s writings have commanded interest from across the disciplines of literature, philosophy, and theology, but many critical assessments of his life and works have been accused of bowing to the mythology that has built up around Newman and his fellow Tractarians. This book offers a more challenging appraisal of Newman’s life and thought.

Drawing from Annemarie Mol’s conceptulisation of multiplicity, we explore how health care practices enact their object, using physiotherapy as our example. Our concern is particularly to mobilise ways of practicing or doing physiotherapy that are largely under-theorised, unexamined or marginalised. This approach explores those actions that reside in the interstitial spaces around, beneath and beyond the limits of established practices. Using Mol’s understanding of multiplicity as a theoretical and methodological driver, we argue that physiotherapy in practice often subverts the ubiquitous reductive discourses of biomedicine. Physiotherapy thus enacts multiple objects that it then works to suppress. We argue that highlighting multiplicities opens up physiotherapy as a space which can broaden the objects of practice and resist the kinds of closure that have become emblematic of contemporary physiotherapy practice. Using an exemplar from a rehabilitation setting, we explore how physiotherapists construct their object and consider how multiplicity informs an otherwise physiotherapy that has broader implications for health care and rehabilitation.

FADYL JK and NICHOLLS DA. Nursing Inquiry 2013; 20: 23–29 Foucault, the subject and the research interview: a critique of methodsResearch interviews are a widely used method in qualitative health research and have been adapted to suit a range of methodologies. Just as it is valuable that new approaches are explored, it is also important to continue to examine their appropriate use. In this article, we question the suitability of research interviews for ‘history of the present’ studies informed by the work of Michel Foucault – a form of qualitative research that is being increasingly employed in the analysis of healthcare systems and processes. We argue that several aspects of research interviewing produce philosophical and methodological complications that can interfere with achieving the aims of the analysis in this type of study. The article comprises an introduction to these tensions and examination of them in relation to key aspects of a Foucauldian philosophical position, and discussion of where this might position researchers when it comes to designing a study.