Mitchellmemo17

Study Components

1. Literature Review This project will begin with a comprehensive literature review pertaining to biotechnology, the political economy of biotechnology, the history of biotechnology, and the regulatory politics around biotechnology. Further, I will collect and analyze policy documents and popular media representations of bioscientific advances. This literature review will enable me to understand fully the historical moment in which the biosciences are situated and to prepare myself to ask well-crafted questions that will elicit detailed and insightful responses. The policy documents and popular media material will also be used as data. Of particular interest to me will be examining how other scholars have approached the same phenomena through varied lenses. For instance, while my project does not focus on the economic, many studies relating to the biosciences have taken this approach, by being fully cognizant of the insights other scholars have gleaned, I can more fully integrate my own research and insights into the already extant literature. The literature will be examined using a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1970) that seeks to identify vocabulary, themes, uncertainties and examples that are of particular concern to a community of practitioners, in this case human-animal chimera researchers and other concerned parties. Using this approach, I will be able to develop questions capable of drawing out actors understanding and thinking about how such research interacts with social, ethical and political concerns. 2. Ethnographic interviews with identified actors I will conduct approximately 60 ethnographic interviews, each about two hours in length, for this project. My primary interviewees will consist of British stem-cell researchers, HFEA regulators, and other parties of interest. All interviews will be fully transcribed and will be returned to the interviewee for editing and final approval. Interviews will be conducted face-to-face whenever possible, but when otherwise unavoidable, interviews will be conducted via telephone. 3. Participant observation I will engage in participant observation of scientific practice, scientist interaction with the public and scientist and regulator interaction. Observation of practice will occur in the lab, observation of scientist and public will occur at public engagements, and scientist and regulator interaction will occur at policy debates. These observations will allow me to observe the new imaginations as they emerge in real time. 4. Data Analysis This project will take a grounded theory approach to the analysis of the data collected. This will involve coding my data in order to identify key metaphors, concepts, events, and people that are shaping the ethics, norms and policies around human-animal stem cell chimera research. The overall goal is to understand how new ethics, norms and policy are forming within the currently ambiguous milieu in which human-animal chimera research is presently situated. In order to validate my findings, I shall present them at relevant academic conferences, as well as publish them in pertinent academic and professional journals. Moreover, I will seek to validate my findings with the scientists involved within human-animal chimera research.