Anthropology of Science

Anti Anti Antiscience

by Rena Lederman

Investigating Emerging Biomedical Practices: Zones of Awkward Engagement on Different Scales

by Michalis Kontopodis

Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton, Cultural reproduction, attitudes, and meaning in the category of outsider art

by Andrea Fritsch

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 4(1): 87-105. (May 2012)
Copyright ©2012 by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

An analysis of the debate surrounding the art exhibit Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton at Intuit: The Center... more An analysis of the debate surrounding the art exhibit Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in 2010 reveals sets of actors with competing interests and claims on the term outsider art. I explore the public fascination with madness and outsider art, suggesting actors engage outsider art in three attitudes—aesthetic, instrumental and investigative. Aesthetic attitudes operate within an expanded definition of official ‘Art’ that allows outsider artwork, but not the outsider artist, to participate in the reproduction of fine art conventions. Instrumental attitudes engage outsider artwork and perceptions of madness as forms of cultural and social capital in the Bourdieuian sense. The curators of Almost There operated with an investigative attitude, seeking to understand the social conditions influencing the artist as well as the artist’s sociality and intent. Investigative fields such as documentary production and psychiatry situate outsider art historically, as art practice, and subjective expression. I argue each attitude strategically engages the label of outsider art to both negotiate and question hierarchical relationships. The imperfect fit of the Almost There exhibit in the category of outsider art demonstrates the limitations of current conceptions of artistic merit and mental health.

Radical Reductions: Neurophysiology, Politics and Personhood in Russian Addiction Medicine

by Eugene Raikhel

Chapter 10 of Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience. Edited by Suparna Choudhury and Jan Slaby. 2012. Wiley-Blackwell.

The digital anatomy theater: scientific practices for representing the body

by Marko Monteiro

MONTEIRO, Marko. The digital anatomy theater: scientific practices for
representing the body. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, v.18, n.3, jul.-set. 2011.

Available at: http://scielo.br.

Contemporary scientific practices for representing the body are investigated ethnographically through a comparative... more Contemporary scientific practices for representing the body are investigated ethnographically through a comparative analysis with the Renaissance anatomy theater, a practice used to understand the body in early modern science. First and foremost, I seek to analyze the manner through which visualizations of the inside of the body produce knowledge of its functioning. The conclusion is that, currently, the production of knowledge greatly privileges the validation of code and modeling of the biological processes in which one wishes to intervene. The objective is to unveil the meanings of the circulation of images, data and theories that bring together material bodies, visualization techniques and scientists, enabling the production of truth about the body in a biological sense.

Navigating 'Modern Science'and 'Traditional Culture': the Dharamsala Men-Tsee-Khang in India

by Stephan Kloos

Genomic Anthropology: Coming in From the Cold?

by Gisli Palsson

published in Current Anthropology

Post-Soviet Placebos: Epistemology and Authority In Russian Treatments for Alcoholism

by Eugene Raikhel

The dominant modalities of treatment for alcoholism in Russia are suggestion-based methods developed by narcology—the... more The dominant modalities of treatment for alcoholism in Russia are suggestion-based methods developed by narcology—the subspecialty of Russian psychiatry which deals with addiction. A particularly popular method is the use of disulfiram—an alcohol antagonist—for which narcologists commonly substitute neutral substances. Drawing on 14 months of fieldwork at narcological clinics in St. Petersburg, this article examines the epistemological and institutional conditions which facilitate this practice of “placebo therapy.” I argue that narcologists’ embrace of such treatments has been shaped by a clinical style of reasoning specific to a Soviet and post-Soviet psychiatry, itself the product of contested Soviet politics over the knowledge of the mind and brain. This style of reasoning has facilitated narcologists’ understanding of disulfiram as a behavioral, rather than a pharmacological, treatment and has disposed them to amplify patients’ responses through attention to the performative aspects of the clinical encounter and through management of the treatment’s broader reputation as an effective therapy. Moreover, such therapies have generally depended upon, and helped to reinforce, clinical encounters premised on a steeply hierarchical physician–patient relationship.

Review: Science and the Social: Daniel L. Kleinman, Science and Technology In Society: Review International Sociology, 2007 : From Biotechnology to the Internet. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, 141

by Samuel Lézé

in english

In Mother's Lap: Forging Care and Kinship in Documentary Protocols of Sexual Assault Intervention

by Sameena Mulla

On-line publication before print version, Law, Culture and Humanities

In this article, I examine the documentary practices of forensic intervention into sexual assault as they reveal a... more In this article, I examine the documentary practices of forensic intervention into sexual assault as they reveal a larger set of imaginaries about kinship, gender, violence and healing. In the course of the forensic encounter, sexual assault victims frequently disclose victimization by intimates or relatives. The reading practices and audit mechanisms to which forensic documents are subjected reveal tensions between the real-life experiences of sexual assault victims and their families on the one hand, and institutional imaginaries of care and victimization on the other.

Op zoek naar de taal van God en het grote geld. Hoe een diepgelovig christen en een handige ondernemer tegelijkertijd het DNA van de mens in kaart brachten [Searching for the language of God and big profits. How a devout Christian and an innovative entrepreneur simultaneously mapped the human DNA].

by Bart Penders

Penders, B. (2009). Academische Boekengids 73: 19-23.

From individuals to groups: a review of the meaning of 'personalized' in nutrigenomics.

by Bart Penders

Penders, B., Horstman, K., Saris, W.H.M. & Vos, R. (2007). Trends in Food Science and Technology 18 (6): 333-338. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tifs.2007.02.004]

Aligning Nutrigenomics and ELSA. Towards a politics of classification.

by Bart Penders

Penders, B. (2007). Graduate Journal of Social Science 4 (1): 34-49. [DOI: NA]

Walking the line between lab and computation: the 'moist' zone.

by Bart Penders

Penders, B., Horstman, K. & Vos, R. (2008). BioScience 58 (8): 747-755. [DOI: 10.1641/B580811]

The social study of corporate science: a research manifesto.

by Bart Penders

Penders, B., Verbakel, J.M.A. & Nelis, A.P. (2009). Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 29 (6): 439-446 [DOI: 10.1177/0270467609349047]

Large-scale research and the goal of health: An analysis of doable problem construction in ‘new’ nutrition science.

by Bart Penders

Penders, B., Horstman, K. & Vos, R. (2009). Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 34 (4): 332-349. [DOI: 10.1179/030801809X12529269201200]

Académicos, organizaciones civiles y exclusión social

by Luis Arturo Avila Melendez

Revista CTS - Portafolios 2010

En este artículo se analiza la posible contribución futura de los centros e institutos de investigación de las... more En este artículo se analiza la posible contribución futura de los centros e institutos de investigación de las universidades públicas y de los Centros Públicos de Investigación –en adelante CI– para enfrentar los crecientes procesos de exclusión social de un mayoritario y diverso sector de la población de los procesos de generación de la riqueza basados en la producción y aprovechamiento del conocimiento. El probable aprovechamiento del conocimiento generado en los CI para lograr un impacto social amplio enfrenta múltiples problemas para su concreción. Una de las estrategias fundamentales que hacen falta en las políticas educativas en México para diversificar sus contribuciones directas contra la inequidad social sería fortalecer la integración de organizaciones civiles con identidad territorial o colectiva en las redes de investigación de los CI. Estudios sobre investigación participativa y movimientos sociales en defensa de conocimientos colectivos permiten vislumbrar los retos que enfrenta esta propuesta dadas las políticas de financiamiento predominantes de los CI.

Apropiación tecnológica, alimentación y género (solar stove)

by Luis Arturo Avila Melendez

Decisio, 2009.

Deforestation in the rural areas of Michoacán, Mexico, has brought about the scarcity of lumber, which is the only... more Deforestation in the rural areas of Michoacán, Mexico, has brought about the scarcity of lumber, which is the only resource available for cooking in those regions. The need to reduce the need for exploitation of the forest has led to the development of diverse technologies like the solar stove. This article presents the experience of the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Regional Integral Development (CIIDIR) in Michoacán, (part of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional) (IPN), in a workshop carried out in the town of Patamban. The workshop was organized to build solar stoves, which allowed for the appropriation of the technology on the part of the participants, as well as the modification of technical and aesthetic aspects of the stoves.