Seeing the value of experiential knowledge through COVID-19

Abstract

Seeing the entwinement of social and epistemic challenges through COVID, we discuss the perils of simplistic appeals to ‘follow the science’. A hardened scientism risks excarbating social conflict and fueling conspiracy beliefs. Instead, we see an opportunity to devise more inclusive medical knowledge practices through endorsing experiential knowledge alongside traditional evidence types.

Re-socializing pre-health education in the context of COVID: Pandemic prompts for bio-social approaches

“…For the same reason, we concur with other social scientists who have, in the context of COVID, endorsed “experiential knowledge alongside traditional evidence types” as a way of extending beyond the limits of scientism ( 39 ). By allowing pre-health students to also become social scientists, we argue that we can enable 21 st century students to come to terms with what Nikolas Rose once called “the politics of life itself” under so-called advanced liberalism ( 40 ).…”

The contested meaning of “long COVID” – Patients, doctors, and the politics of subjective evidence

“…We explore how stakeholders use the term long COVID in online media and other channels to identify their illness and group identity, but also to demarcate personal experience and subjective evidence of long COVID from that of other sources ( Atkinson et al, 2021 ). However, our concentration is on programmatic publications, and on how subjective evidence is politically employed, rather than on detailed accounts of first-hand experience.…”

Everyday information behavior during the “new normal” of the Covid-19 pandemic: approaching the notions of experiential and local knowledge

“…Because of this collective dimension, participants can position themselves against higher information systems in patterns of convergence and divergence. When they raise questions about the effectiveness of vaccines or when they remind the difficulties of developing effective drugs for other diseases, EK allows them to assume a critical stance toward science as the dominant epistemological position in today's society (Atkinson et al, 2021). In this sense, Genuis (2012) uses the term "posture" in sensemaking processes, differentiating an experiential and an analytical posture on health information.…”

“…Both Fazey et al (2006) and(Teng€ o et al, 2014) defend EK's cooperative role because it complements scientific knowledge by providing an alternative perspective on quantified data, and fine-grained information about the interaction of local and macro phenomena. Such integration and cooperation emerged during the pandemic, when anosmia, which firstly appeared on social media as a common low-level symptom in patients' reports, was complemented with statistical evidence to be recognized as a typical Covid-19 symptom (Atkinson et al, 2021). Shin and Shim (2019) label "thick knowledge", i.e.…”

“…On the other hand, EK exchanged on social media has allowed to discover symptoms of Covid-19, such as anosmia, before formal evidence has been available (Sarker et al, 2020), while at the beginning of the crisis, it has made up for the unavailability of healthcare services (Zhao et al, 2020). Similarly, in medical care, the need to take immediate action on scant evidence has revived case histories from the bottom of the evidence pyramid, revaluing experience (Atkinson et al, 2021). In a complementary way, some studies have underlined the protective nature of the information obtained from other people, especially in comparison with the dramatism of media (Tandoc and Lee, 2020;Chivers et al, 2020).…”