“Mutilated Bodies: Cross-Perspectives on Realities, Challenges, and Possibilities”
🔔Registration closes: Friday, March 13, 2026🔔
On Thursday, March 19, the Handi’Tech Day 2026 will take place on the Saint-Étienne campus of Mines Saint-Etienne. It will be a time for reflection and exchange focusing on lived experiences, scientific advancements, and technological innovations related to amputation and bodily reconstruction.
Researchers, patients, healthcare professionals, associations, and companies will take the time to share their perspectives on the challenges of disability, care, rehabilitation, prosthetics, and the societal view that redefines bodies and identities.
- Felix Gretarsson, the first patient in the world to have received a bilateral upper limb transplant, will open the day with a powerful testimony about his journey. Born in Reykjavik in 1972, he began his career as an electrician, but a serious electrical accident led to the amputation of both his arms. Dr. Dubernard operated on him for over 15 hours in Lyon, marking the first successful bilateral arm transplant. Today, Felix lives in France, where he supports individuals seeking personal reconstruction while continuing intensive rehabilitation.
- The company Dessintey will then present its expertise in innovative rehabilitation technologies, particularly mirror therapy, which accelerates the return to autonomy for patients with disabilities.
- Claire Mahé, a doctor in human movement sciences and an embedded systems engineer, will share her expertise on utilizing phantom phenomena to improve lower limb prosthetics.
- Valérie Delattre, an archaeo-anthropologist at Inrap and researcher at UMR ARTeHIS (University of Burgundy), specializing in the archaeology of disability, will enlighten the audience on the place of people with disabilities in past societies.
- Valentine Gourinat, a doctor in information and communication sciences and a research engineer at the University of Strasbourg, specializing in disability studies and the use of prosthetics, will explore the invisible dimensions of disability, as produced and maintained by ableist and valido-centric social norms.
Workshops and demonstrations will also be offered by ADEPA (Association for the Defense and Study of Amputees), Dessintey, the Forez Orthopedic Center, My Human Kit, as well as orthopedic and prosthetic professionals.
👉 To register, click here: https://portail.emse.fr/limesurvey2021/index.php/992651?lang=fr
👏 Mines Saint-Etienne thanks the organizing team for this day of inclusion and testimony: Hélène Pangot, Julie Jaffre, and Carole Claudinon.
