ABSTRACT
One primary question guides this chapter, (1) What influence does unintentional sound have in health and healing contexts? In reply this chapter offers a NICU case study that uses the concept rhetorical ventriloquism to illuminate healthcare technologies, their sounds, and the rhetorical work they do. Healthcare technologies in Western biomedical healthcare today perform different work from those examined in the previous two chapters, actually and rhetorically. When these healthcare technologies and their soundwaves are rhetorically considered, they sonically display and demonstrate authority and power to discipline bodies. From a larger study of nurse-caregiver communication in NICUs in Denmark and the United States, qualitative interviews and observations show how healthcare technologies produce intentional sounds while they also discipline bodies within a NICU.
