Professor Gill Haddow
Job Title
Professor of Sociology of Medicine and Technology

Room number
2.87Building (Address)
Old Surgeons' HallStreet (Address)
High School YardsCity (Address)
EdinburghCountry (Address)
UKPost code (Address)
EH11LZResearch interests
Research interests
My research interests have roughly fallen into three main categories in my career till now:
Organ Transplantation and Genetic Donation (pre 2013): In the Sociology Department at the University of Edinburgh by PhD was based on interviews with organ donation families in Scotland who had agreed or refused to donate the organs of their next of kin ('Organ donation and Transplantation: The Paradox of Gifting and Dis/Embodiment'). From there I was employed as a research fellow evaluating the introduction of NHS 24 followed by employment in the ESRC Innogen Centre based in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, on the ELSI team focussing on biobanks and genetic donation.
2. Animal, Mechanical and Me: The Search for Replaceable Hearts (2013-2018): Next, funded by a Wellcome Trust University Award this allowed me the luxury of dedicated time to pursue my own research interests and the security of an open contract. In AM&ME I began to explore ideas from my PhD about how subjectivity alterations will partly be determined by the type and kind of material that is used to repair, replace or regenerate the body. Using the term ‘everyday cyborgs’ my research challenges public stereotypes of monsters and academic understandings of what ‘cyborgs’ are. Further I show that most people, if made to choose between (hypothetical) implantable technologies, would least prefer a transplanted pig organ and most preferred a 3-D bioprinted replacement organs and I reflect on the boundaries of our identity in the book 'Embodiment and Everyday Cyborgs: Technologies that Alter Subjectivity' (MUP open access). With an additional Wellcome Public Engagement Award for 'Everyday Cyborgs: Stories from the Inside/Out', I was incredibly fortunate to be able to work with a range of incredible people including young adults, creative professionals, ICD patients etc and co-producing four films:
(i) a gothic film about non-human animal hybridity 'Broken Wings' over an 18-month period with young adults supported by creative professionals, film-makers, sound producers and animators;
(ii) an emotional short film co-produced with a research participant and filmmaker, ‘Maggie’s ICD story’;
(iii) 'Electrifying Cyborg Heart' which was an animation reflecting on the nature of the relationship between human bodies, identity and technology; and
(iv) 'Everyday Cyborgs' - an animation depicting the findings of qualitative research with ICD patients all joined with ‘talking head’ sections for a 45-minute documentary,
All of these have been made into a documentary available here: Everyday Cyborgs and Humanimals
3. Disability, Illness and Pain (2024 - present): Funded by a Wellcome Trust Culture Catalyst Fund for Innovation Frameworks (June 2025) we will carry out a research project called 'Who cares in the university? Reimagining research cultures through research with and by disabled and chronically ill academics.' Colleagues and I will set out to challenge university ableist and disablitist practices which, we assume, will be made visible in university policies, procedures and processes. Further, we will embed 'care' in our research drawing on theoretical frameworks from feminist ('ethics of care research manifesto') and disability justice literature (our team will be based on a 'web of care'). We will work within a 'slow scholarship' ideology where we will resist the need for fast knowledge production. As we advocate for a 'universal design' approach our finding can be used to benefit all academics as UD is about ‘designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of age, ability, or status in life’.
Edinburgh Research Explorer profile
PhD Supervision
I enjoy and benefit from being on the PhD teams of students interested in a variety of areas relating to bodies, identity and medical science and technology:
Current PhD students:
- Sasha Lee Smit (2025) Epistemic Injustice in AI/MML within health care data (with Emily Postan)
- Lara Bochman (2023) Embodying the trans-ing body: temporality and materiality in non-linear gender
transitions (with Niamh Moore) - Janet Philip (2020): Behind Closed Doors: Boundary work in Anatomy Schools(with Steve Sturdy and colleagues in the Anatomy School).
- Laura Donald (2019): Narrating chronic heart disease in contemporary British and American writing, 1980-present (with Gavin Miller in Literature and the Medical Humanities. The University of Glasgow).
Completed PhD Students:
- Nathalie Dupin (2023): Maximising PhD outputs for 'UK Plc' through interdisciplinary practices.
- Vassilis Galanos (2022): Expectations and Expertise in Artificial Intelligence: Specialist views and historical perspectives on conceptualisation, promise, funding and policy.
- Fiona Coyle (2022): Mitigating Modification: Understanding the UK Human Germline Genome-Editing Debate
- Annie Sorbie (2022): Operationalising ‘publicness’ in data-intensive health research regulation: An examination of the public interest as a regulatory device (with colleagues in Law)
- Aoife McKenna (2019) Women’s Experiences of Sterilisation in Brazil: Negotiating Reproductive Discourse, Institutional and Intimate Relationships, and Contraceptive Practices.
- Natalia Niño Machado (2018) Growing right: unpacking the WHO Child Growth Standards Development and their implementation in Colombia.
- Leah Gilman (2017) Qualifying Kinship: How do UK Gamete Donors Negotiate Identity-Release Donation?
- Sara Bea (2017): No Heroics, please: Mapping Deceased Donation Practices in a Catalan Hospital.
- Tarmphong Chobisara (2017): The Authentic Research Relationship in Biobanks.
- Malissa Shaw (2016): Embodied Agency and Agentic Bodies: Negotiating Medicalisation in Colombian Assisted Reproduction.
- Alison Wheatley (2016): Good Soldiers, Good Guys, and Good Parents: The Meanings of Donation and Donated Tissue in the Context of the Danish Donor Sperm Industry.
- Tirion Seymour (2016): The Third Sector and the Shaping of Scottish Huntingdon’s disease services: organisations, identity, and boundary work.
Background
With an undergraduate and postgraduate background in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, I have had a continuing interest in the sociology of health, illness medicine and technology mainly focussing on the connections between bodies, identity and relationships mediating (and when mediated through) biomedical innovations.
Undergraduate Teaching
Sociology of Medicine:
In 2017 with STIS colleague Fadhila Mazanderani, we developed and designed the multiple EUSA nominated UG honours course Sociology of Medicine (STIS10013). It introduces students to sociological thinking about medicine’s shifting position in contemporary Western society in clear and accessible terms. As one SoM student communicated ‘…the ideas I have come to terms with from this course have genuinely shifted my understanding of Sociology, and larger, how I understand the world around me. This is what I came to university for'.
Sociology of Disability and Illness (TBC 2026/2027)
Publications (from 2020)
Books:
- Haddow, G. (2021), Embodiment and Everyday Cyborgs: Technologies that alter Subjectivity, Manchester University Press, Manchester. (available through Open Access) This book is about the creation of 'everyday cyborgs'. I invite readers of ‘Embodiment and everyday cyborgs’ to consider whether they might prefer organs from other humans or non-human animals (known as xenotransplantation), or implantable ‘cybernetic’ technologies to replace their own? In discovering that individuals have a very clear preference for human organs but not for the non-human, I suggest that the inside of our bodies may be more important to our sense of identity than may have previously been thought. Whereas organs from other (once) living bodies can contaminate the body of the recipient (simultaneously altering subjectivity so they inherit traits e.g. gender or pig-like characteristic in xenotransplantation), cybernetic technology is acclimatised to and becomes part of the body and subjectivity. In organ transplantation the organ has the potential to alter subjectivity – whereas with cybernetic technology it does not alter identity but is incorporated into existing subjectivity. Technologies are 'clean' from previous organic fleshy associations and although they may malfunction or cause infection, they do not alter identity in the way that a human or non-human organ might. Yet, we are arguably creating a 21st-century identity crisis through an increasing reliance on cybernetic technologies such as implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) creating new forms of ‘un-health’ and a new category of patient called ‘everyday cyborgs’ who have to develop strategies to incorporate device alienation as well as reinserting human agency over ICD activation - a new biomedical nemesis?
- Goldschmidt, P, Haddow, G., and Mazanderani, F., (eds) (2020) Uncanny Bodies, Luna Press, Edinburgh.
2019 marked the centenary of Freud’s essay ‘The Uncanny’ (Freud 2003 [1919]). According to Freud, the uncanny is not simply that which makes us afraid, the macabre or the gruesome, but the unease that emerges when that which is most familiar turns strange or hostile. To articulate this sense of the familiar estranged, Freud draws heavily on stories about bodies and bodily metaphors: automatons, doubles and doppelgängers, dismembered limbs coming to life, foreign bodies within one’s own (Freud 2003, p.1). With social science colleagues and creative professionals, we organised a workshop, in Edinburgh (July 2019) with 20 academics and creative writers invited to consider the relevance of Freud’s uncanny for the body and biomedicine today. During the workshop we experimented with novel forms of writing across the social sciences, literature and medicine producing a pamphlet of ‘The New Freud Uncan is a Book of Nonsense Poetry’ and a published this edited collection called ‘Uncanny Bodies’ (Luna Press, 2020) with contributions from fiction writers and poets, social scientists and early career academics.
Articles and Book Chapters:
- Haddow, G., (still in progress) Coming to Cinema and Operating Theatres near you; From Female Androids in Metropolis and Ex Machina to Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators and Male Everyday Cyborgs.
- Haddow G, Åsberg C, Timeto F. (2023) Cyborg figurations: Exploring the intersections of technology, embodiment, identity, and ecology. Tecnoscienza. 2023 Sept 26;14(1):123-154. doi: 10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17747
- Haddow, G., (2021) ‘Dirty pigs’ and the xenotransplantation paradox Medical Humanities Published Online First: 25 October 2021. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2021-012187.
- Haddow, G, (2020) ‘When I first saw Jesus, he was cyborg’ in Gray, C., et al Modified: Living as a Cyborg, Routledge, New York and London, 68-74. In this chapter I use the experiences that were related to me, by the everyday cyborgs I had interviewed to present a fact-ionalised account of ICD implantation – ‘When I first saw Jesus, he was Cyborg’ introduces the main protagonists Jesus, Shelley and Johnny in an undetermined time and place, relating their experiences of undergoing cyborgisation.’
Haddow, G., (2020) ‘Animal, Mechanical and Me: Organ Transplantation and the Ambiguity of Embodiment’ in Mason, K., and Boero, N. (eds.,) The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Body and Embodiment, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 165-171.
Works within
Staff Hours and Guidance
Meetings are by virtual appointment on MS Teams and Zoom or email me (gill.haddow@ed.ac.uk) for a face-to-face meeting.
Publications by user content
Publication | Research Explorer link |
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Haddow G, Åsberg C, Timeto F. Cyborg figurations: Exploring the intersections of technology, embodiment, identity, and ecology. Tecnoscienza. 2023 Sept 26;14(1):123-154. doi: 10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17747 |
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Haddow G. Embodiment and everyday cyborgs: Technologies that alter subjectivity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021. 216 p. (Inscriptions). |
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Haddow G. Animal, mechanical, and me: Organ transplantation and the ambiguity of embodiment. In Boero N, Mason K, editors, The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Body and Embodiment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2020. p. 165-181 Epub 2020 Jul. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190842475.013.12 |
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Mittra J, Mastroeni M, Haddow G, Wield D, Barlow E. Re-imagining healthcare and medical research systems in post-devolution Scotland. Sociological Research Online. 2019 Mar 11;24(1):55-72. doi: 10.1177/1360780418823221 |
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Pickersgill M, Chan S, Haddow G, Laurie G, Sridhar D, Sturdy S et al. Biomedicine, self and society: An agenda for collaboration and engagement. Wellcome Open Research . 2019 Jan 23;4:9. doi: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15043.1 |
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Pickersgill M, Chan S, Haddow G, Laurie G, Sridhar D, Sturdy S et al. The social sciences, humanities, and health. The Lancet. 2018 Apr 14;391(10129):1462–1463. Epub 2018 Apr 9. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30669-X |
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Ikegwuonu T, Haddow G, Tait J, Murray AF, Kunkler IH. Horizon scanning implanted biosensors in personalising breast cancer management: First pilot study of breast cancer patients views. Health Science Reports. 2018 Apr;1(4):1-9. e30. Epub 2018 Mar 15. doi: 10.1002/hsr2.30 |
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Vermeulen N, Haddow G, Seymour T, Faulkner-Jones A, Shu W. 3D bioprint me: A socioethical view of bioprinting human organs and tissues. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2017;43:618-624. Epub 2017 Mar 20. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2015-103347 |
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Haddow G, Harmon SHE, Gilman L. Implantable Smart Technologies (IST): Defining the ‘sting’ in data and device. Health Care Analysis. 2016 Sept 30;24(3):210-227. Epub 2015 Dec 8. doi: 10.1007/s10728-015-0309-8 |
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Harmon SHE, Haddow G, Gilman L. New risks inadequately managed: The case of smart implants and medical device regulation. Law, Innovation and Technology. 2016 Feb 2;7(2):231-252. Epub 2016 Feb 2. doi: 10.1080/17579961.2015.1106107 |
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Haddow G, King E, Kunkler I, McLaren D. Cyborgs in the everyday: Masculinity and biosensing prostate cancer. Science as Culture. 2015 Dec;24(4):484-506. Epub 2015 Sept 3. doi: 10.1080/09505431.2015.1063597 |
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Mikami K, Kent A, Haddow G. The “life costs” of living with rare genetic diseases. In Kumar D, Chadwick R, editors, Genomics and Society: Ethical, Legal, Cultural and Socioeconomic Implications. 1st ed. London: Academic Press. 2015. 10 |
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Haddow G, King E, Kunkler I, McLaren D. Cyborgs in the everyday: Masculinity and bio sensing prostate cancer. Science as Culture. 2015 Oct 2;24(4):484-506. |
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Ikegwuonu T, Haddow G, Tait J, Kunkler IH. Recovering breast cancer patients’ views about the use of in-vivo biosensors to personalise radiotherapy treatment. Edinburgh: IMPACT Project, 2015. 35 p. |
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Harmon S, Lawrence D, Haddow G. Costumed Visions Network Launch Motley Coat: A Blog of the Mason Institute. 2015. |
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Kennedy MR, Haddow G, Heeney C. Data Linkage in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents And Children (ALSPAC) MI YouTube Channel. 2015. |
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Mittra J, Mastroeni M, Haddow G. Is Scottish Independence Bad for your Health? The Conversation. 2014. |
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Haddow G, Mittra J, Snowden K, Barlow E, Wield D. From 'Sick Man' to 'Living Lab': The Narrative of Scottish Health Since Devolution. 2014. (Innogen Working Paper Series; 108). |
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Harmon S, Laurie G, Haddow G. Governing Risk, Engaging Publics, and Engendering Trust: New Horizons for Law and Social Science? Science and Public Policy. 2013 Jan 15;40(1):25-33. Epub 2013 Jan 15. doi: 10.1093/scipol/scs117 |
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Harmon S, Haddow G. Banking (on) the Brain: The Neurological in Culture, Law and Science. Medical Law International. 2012 Jun;12(2):79-91. doi: 10.1177/0968533212471176 |
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Haddow G, Cunningham-Burley S, Murray L. Can the Governance of a Population Genetic Data Bank Effect Recruitment? Evidence from the Public Consultation of Generation Scotland. Public Understanding of Science. 2011 Jan;20(1):117-129. doi: 10.1177/0963662510361655 |
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Haddow G, Bruce A, Sathanandam S, Wyatt J. Nothing is Really Safe: A Focus Group Study on the Processes of Anonymising and Sharing of Health Data for Research Purposes. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. 2011;17(6):1140-1146. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2753.2010.01488.x |
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Haddow G. Heredity and Hope: The Case for Genetic Screening. Technology and culture. 2010 Apr;51(2):532-533. doi: 10.1353/tech.0.0443 |
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Haddow G, Bruce A, Calvert J, Harmon S, Marsden W. Not "Human" Enough to be Human but not "Animal" Enough to be Animal - the Case of the HFEA, Cybrids and Xenotransplantation in the UK. New Genetics and Society. 2010;29(1):3-17. doi: 10.1080/14636770903561182 |
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Haddow G. "We Only Did it Because He Asked Us": Gendered Accounts of Participation in a Population Genetic Data Collection. Social Science & Medicine. 2009 Oct;69(7):1010-1017. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.07.028 |
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Roberts A, Heaney D, Haddow G, O'Donnell CA. Implementation of a national, nurse-led telephone health service in Scotland: assessing the consequences for remote and rural localities. Rural and remote health. 2009;9(2):-. 1079. |
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Haddow G, Cunningham-Burley S, Bruce A, Parry S. Generation Scotland: Consulting Publics and Specialists at an Early Stage in a Genetic Database's Development. Critical Public Health. 2008;18(2):139-149. doi: 10.1080/09581590701824086 |
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Laurie G, Haddow G, Cunningham-Burley S, Hunter K. Tackling Community Concerns about Commercialisation and Genetic Research: A Modest Interdisciplinary Proposal. Social Science and Medicine. 2007;64(2):272-282. PMID: 17050056. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.028 |
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Smith BH, Campbell H, Blackwood D, Connell J, Connor M, Deary IJ et al. Generation Scotland: the Scottish Family Health Study; a new resource for researching genes and heritability. BMC Medical Genetics. 2006 Oct 2;7:-. 74. doi: 10.1186/1471-2350-7-74 |
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Haddow G. The phenomenology of death, embodiment and organ transplantation. Sociology of Health & Illness. 2005 Mar 10;27(1):92-113. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00433.x |
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