Patzke+Delineating+1

Karin Patzke February 14, 2013

Memo: Delineating a Project

1. Intellectual property is a legal construction of ownership and is structurally applied to scientific practices. Tracing the link between established practices in the law and changing practices in life sciences and agriculture I would focus on how these two (law and science) force negotiations and understandings in new science practices. Moving beyond a simple comparison-based analysis (i.e. co-production of knowledge and order), investigating the implications of these ‘imaginaries’ (future repercussions) would progress the rather static dialogue currently occupying the STS ‘law and science’ genre. This work would build on anthropology of law work to highlight legal technologies, or the ways in which legal practices are utilized to both resolve conflicts and compromises between established policy practices and ‘new’ scientific (and economic) discoveries.

2. New discoveries in genetics have focused on commercialization and the role of profit-based research. I imagine this as part historical analysis of legislation, economic constructs and genetic development and part contemporary pseudo-ethnography of bio-tech labs. Less focused on ‘artifacts’ this work would utilize concepts of ‘assemblage’, ‘neo-liberal’, and ‘network’ to flesh out an analysis of rapidly fluctuating terrain of economic order in the life sciences.

3. Genetic Alliance is a public advocacy group that promotes “transforming health through genetics” through education, ‘openness’, and legal policy. They have participated in NSF funding for genetic databases, amicus briefs for supreme court cases, creating (online) spaces and organization for disease-specific patient groups, ‘clinical’ studies and even laboratory work. The board is composed of a variety of ‘stakeholders’ – biotech company executives, patients, etc. This research would focus on Genetic Alliances as a site of transformation for contemporary US healthcare. It would encompass ethnographic work and focus on patient activism-as-practice as an integral component of contemporary policy in healthcare ‘reform.’