Patzke+Delineating+2

//For the second version of this memo, I attempted to categorize the different delineations and expanded the first and second for clarity (I hope).//

1. ‘Co-production’ of social order in law/genetics: Intangible property is a legal construction of ownership and is applied to scientific practices through concepts of innovation and new discovery. 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. How does judicial precedent (and interpretation) affect new discoveries in the life sciences and how those new discoveries are interpreted in the world? 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 and institutions 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. The ‘minor tools’ of legal technology, such as briefs, fictions, precedents, and //dictas//, are a robust site of inquiry that reveal the ‘human” element of the law, where individuals can take a stance and posit rulings and opinions. These ‘minor technologies’ disclose the ways in which individual actors/stakeholders influence and participate in the creation of ‘social order.’

2. Finance and genetic incentivizing: New discoveries in genetics have focused on commercialization and the role of profit-based research. I imagine this as composed of several different parts: historical analysis of legislation, legal-economic constructs property and genetic development and ethnographic work focused on bio-tech business. 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. Government Lobbying as Activism: Genetic Alliance (GA) is a public advocacy group that promotes “ transforming health through genetics” through education, ‘openness’, and legal policy. GA promotes genetic research as a means to improve healthcare. They have participated in NSF funding for genetic databases, amicus briefs for US Supreme Court cases, creating (online) spaces and organization for disease-specific patient groups, ‘clinical’ studies and, even laboratory work. The board of directors 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.’