BROWN BAGS
Fall 2009 Brown Bags are held
12:00pm – 1:30pm
on alternating Thursdays in 8108 Social Science (unless otherwise noted).
"Circumventing or Reifying Race? The Use of Ancestry versus Race in Biomedical Human Genetic Research"
Abstract:
This talk examines new technologies for producing differences between human populations for the purposes of searching for disease related genetic markers. We focus on genome wide association studies, which have become the technology of choice in recent medical genetic studies. Amongst GWAS studies, we find that some studies attempt to circumvent the use of race categories. Through an examination of the technologies used in these studies and of the infrastructural DNA collection projects and databases (e.g. HapMap) upon which GWAS technologies rely, we find that the researchers use notions of SNP similarities to construct populations for analysis. However, we also find differences amongst the researchers as to how they interpret these SNP similarity groups. We discuss concepts of ancestry in terms of the technologies and infrastructures used to quantify and measure it in genetic material and in terms of conceptual understandings and assumptions based in the discipline of population genetics. Through this examination of ancestry, we introduce the concept of “genome geography,” in which we theorize about the various ways in which scientists “locate” DNA in different places and times. Finally, we discuss the politics of reading, where some scientists as well as members of the media and the public read ancestry as race. We end with a discussion of the multiple interpretations of race and ancestry and the ways in which these two highly complex and contingent concepts become blurred in different ways in the readings of different audiences. This paper is joint with Ramya Rajagopalan and is based on data from an interdisciplinary project with Rajagopalan, Pilar Ossorio, and Kjell Doksum.
Joan H. Fujimura is Professor of Sociology and former director of the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fujimura has written on the sociology and history of genetics, molecular biology, biotechnology, biomedicine, and HIV-AIDS research. Her recent publications include articles on developments in systems biology in “Postgenomic Futures,” New Genetics and Society, vol. 24, and “Calculating Life? A Sociological Perspective on Systems Biology,” European Molecular Biology Organization EMBO Reports (August 2009, co-authored); on sex/gender politics in “Sex Genes,” Signs, vol. 32; on the commercialization of genetics in an article on “The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing,” Science, vol. 318 (2008, co-authored); on race, genomics, and medicine in “Race, Genetics and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence,” Social Studies of Science 38/5 (2008, co-authored) and in “Race versus ancestry: Operationalizing populations in human genetic variation studies” in What's the Use of Race (in press, co-authored). In addition to her current projects on studies of human genetic variation and systems biology, she is also studying the interactions between science and race theory, expertise and authority in the sciences, interdisciplinarity in the sciences, the development of fields analyses in science studies and in sociology, and Japanese genomics within the context of postcolonial studies of science.
"A Conversation with Michelle Murphy"
This session will be devoted to a conversation with Visiting Speaker Michelle Murphy (Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto) about her work.
There will also be a public lecture at 4pm in 8417 Social Science.
October 1*: Enid Montague
"A Sociotechnical Systems Perspective of Human Trust in Health Technologies"
Abstract:
Trust is an integral component of all relationships and successful organizations. Trust in health systems takes on many forms. During this talk, the speaker will identify the important trust relationships in health systems and propose an integrative framework for the evaluation of trust in health related technologies.
Enid Montague is a human factors and ergonomics engineer, assistant professor and Anna Julia Cooper Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Dr. Montague's research explores the role of trust in technology in systems. She looks at why humans trust or distrust technology, the effects of trusting attitudes on system performance, and designing for appropriate trust.
*This session meets in 8411 Social Science.
THIS SESSION IS CANCELLED:
October 8: Martha Fandiño-Lozano
"Wildlife Reserve Selection in Colombia: Scientific Solutions and Institutional Constraints"
Abstract:
Setting conservation priorities is a key issue worldwide, especially
in countries like Colombia that are characterized on one side
by still having large natural areas to select reserves from and on the
other side, by alarming conversion rates. In such a situation, it is
imperative to use scientific paradigms correctly in order to provide instrumentally
valid selection methods but also to be able to relate science and society
in a way that makes it possible to set the new reserves in time. The talk
presents the way Fandiño-Lozano's work solved the first condition in a reasonable
manner but has so far faced insurmountable constraints emerging from the
institutional and social context.
Martha Fandiño-Lozano has a Ph.D in Environmental Sciences from the
University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In her doctoral thesis she
proposed new methods to select and manage conservation areas. She is a
biologist of the Los Andes University and has a M.Sc. in development
planning from the same University in Colombia. She was director of the
Division of Natural Resources at the National Planning Department. During her tenure, she proposed the creation of the Ministry of Environment
and the National Parks Unit in her country. For 15 years she was
associate professor of Los Andes and Javeriana Universities. At present
she is scientific director of the Research Group ARCO
(www.grupoarco.info).
"A Conversation with Cori Hayden"
This session will be devoted to a conversation with Visiting Speaker Cori Hayden (Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California–Berkeley) about her work.
There will also be a public lecture at 4pm in 8417 Social Science.
Since this session is scheduled during the 4S Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, it will be determined based on prospective attendance whether we will meet or not.
November 12: Visiting Speaker Tarleton Gillespie
"A Conversation with Tarleton Gillespie"
This session will be devoted to a conversation with Visiting Speaker Tarleton Gillespie (Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Cornell University and Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School) about his work.
There will also be a public lecture at 4pm in 8417 Social Science.
"The Rise of the Biological Perspective: A Story of the Travels of Ideas and Values through German Society"
Abstract:
In this talk I draw from my recent book Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany (University of Chicago Press, April 2009) to trace the social, economic, intellectual, and ideological roots of animal ecology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth century Germany. As I show, the academic subject emerged only at the end of a long series of overlapping populist natural history reform movements that existed mainly outside of the university system. These movements collectively advanced a focus on animal-environment and animal-animal interactions that I see as fundamentally modern. In this talk I explain why this is so, and show how different values among these different reform movements shaped the meanings of “biology” and “ecology” in German culture.
Lynn Nyhart is a professor in the Department of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In addition to authoring Modern Nature (see talk abstract above), she has written Biology Takes Form: Animal Morphology and the German Universities, 1800-1900 (University of Chicago Press, 1996). She is also co-editor of two volumes on the historical intersections of science and civic engagement, Science and Civil Society (2002, co-edited with Tom Broman), and Des sciences citoyennes? La question de l'amateur dans les sciences naturalists (Citizen sciences? The question of the amateur in the natural history sciences, 2007, co-edited with André Michaud and Florian Charvolin). She is currently working on projects on the history of the aquarium and on the history of ideas about biological parts and wholes.
*This session meets in 8411 Social Science.