Search for: All records

Abstract We track and analyze the re-situation of scientific knowledge in the field of human population genomics ancestry studies. We understand re-situation as a process of accommodating the direct or indirect transfer of objects of knowledge from one site/situation to (one or many) other sites/situations. Our take on the concept borrows from Mary S. Morgan’s work on facts traveling while expanding it to include other objects of knowledge such as models, data, software, findings, and visualizations. We structure a specific case study by tracking the re-situation of these objects between three research projects studying human population diversity reported in three articles inScience,Genome ResearchandPLoS Geneticsbetween 2002 and 2005. We characterize these three engagements as a unit of analysis, a “skirmish,” in order to compare: (a) the divergence of interests in how life-scientists answer similar research questions and (b) to track the challenging transformation of workflows in research laboratories as these scientific objects are re-situated individually or in bundles. Our analysis of the case study shows that an accurate understanding of re-situation requires tracking the whole bundle of objects in a project because they interact in particular key ways. The absence or dismissal of these interactions opens the door to unforeseen trade-offs, misunderstandings and misrepresentations about research design(s) and workflow(s) and what these say about the questions asked and the findings produced. 

DNA, Race, and Reproduction helps readers inside and outside of academia engage with the current genomic landscape. The volume brings together experts in law, medicine, religion, history, anthropology, philosophy, and genetics to investigate how scientists, medical professionals, and laypeople use genomic concepts to construct racial identity and make reproductive decisions. It interrogates how DNA figures in the reproduction of racialized bodies and the racialization of reproduction and examines the privileged position from which genomic knowledge claims to speak about human bodies, societies, and activities. The book begins from the premise that reproduction forces a confrontation between biomedical, scientific, and popular understandings of genetics, and that those understandings are often racialized. It therefore centers reproduction as both a site of analysis and an analytic lens. 

The analysis in this chapter focuses on how life scientists working in the field of human population genomics ancestry studies (HPGA) produce and re-use scientific knowledge (see Griesemer and Barragán 2022, Chap. 24 in this volume). 

Abstract Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).