Jesper Petersson
Senior Lecturer
Department of Sociology and WorkAbout Jesper Petersson
Background
Jesper Petersson is an associate professor (docent) in Sociology, and has a Phd in Science and Technology Studies.
During the academic year 2024, he is also a fellow in socio-material bureaucracy at SCORE - Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research.
Current Research
Jesper is the principal investigator for the Forte financed project "Beyond Covid? Using Patient Knowledge to Improve the Care and Management of Long Covid Sufferers". Project period: 2023-2026.
Link to project description:
Jesper was between 2017-2022 the principal investigator for the Forte financed project Online medical records with patient access: How do they affect doctors' practice, profession and patient relations?
Link to project description:
The project is a part of Forte's first call within the framework of the 10-year long national research programme on working life research commissioned by the Swedish government.
Jesper has also been (2016-2019) a part of the project Governance of transboundary risk: The Göta Älv water system, sponsored by FORMAS. He was further affiliated to the Nordic collaboration project The future of work: Opportunities and challenges for the Nordic models, financed by The Nordic Council of Ministers.
Jesper has also been the project manager for a three year study on the use of ICT and social media in future societal crisis management (SOMCRISC) financed by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). In addition to his role as project manager he was also responsible for one of the project's three work packages, namely the work package “Public authorities and voluntarily organizing”. The study presents overviews of current research, performed trend analysis, scenario planning, and arranged workshops with researchers; NGO:s; authorities; stakeholders from the industry etc. to communicate results as well as receiving additional input and feedback.
Teaching
Teaching duties include lecturing in introductory courses to Sociology and the continuation course “Risk, Power and Morale: Controversies in a Science Based Society”, as well as teaching duties at a national Phd-course in Science and Technology Studies. He is also a course coordinator and teacher at the Teaching Education Programme at various levels. Moreover he also supervises undergraduate, graduate and master theses.
Administration
Jesper is a member of the Program Board for the Vocational Teacher Education Program and as well as a member of the Course Council.
Miscellaneous
Jesper Petersson is associated to the Urban Safety and Societal Security Research Centre (URBSEC), a cross disciplinary collaboration between University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology, various public authorities as well as the industry and business sector. He is also coordinating the Swedish West Coast Network for Science and Technology Studies (VäSTS): vasts.gu.se/ (in Swedish).
Fields of Interest
- Science and technology studies
- Medical sociology
- Professions
- Street-level bureaucrats
- Patient activism
- Digitalization
- Expert-laypeople relationships
- eHealth/mHeatlh
- Governmentaility/Governance
- Users
- Risk
- Relational geography
Dissertation
Jesper completed his doctoral thesis “Geographies of eHealth: Studies of Healthcare at a Distance” in 2014. The thesis examines the increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT) to deliver healthcare at a distance (e.g. telehealthcare, telemedicine and telecare, often grouped together under the umbrella label eHealth). The thesis theoretical framework builds upon a combination of Science and Technology Studies and Human Geography. Among other things the thesis investigates how eHealth is involved in attempts to establish new patient roles and tensions between eHealth as a medical instrument and eHealth as a political tool of governance. Particular attention is given to how healthcare at a distance has shifted from a focus on reaching out to underserved population (e.g. rural areas) towards an increased political emphasis on keeping the growing numbers of elderly and chronic care patients in their home environment and out of the traditional institutions and enclosures. Thus, nowadays solutions for healthcare at a distance are embedded in a politico-medical landscape where the use of digital medical instruments for self-care, embedded sensors for home monitoring and various other practices for the collection and automatic analysis of health related data are supposed to both promote popular emancipatory concepts such as patient empowerment and independent living for the elderly as well as fulfill demands for rationalization by technology.
Link to thesis frame: https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/35674/1/gupea_2077_35674_1.pdf