Final Project
A key concept of the anthropology of science and technology would be the idea that an interdisciplinary practice must be utilized as a way of furthering discovery and combating outdated racial and patriarchal processes. I chose this image of Henrietta Lacks because I see her story as both a victim of earlier racially biased medical practices as a woman of color and as a destructive natural process that produced an innovative tool for furthering scientific research. Banu states “… a project that brought the sciences and the social studies of science, the humanities and the biological sciences, into conversation with each other in order to together produce knowledge about the natural world,”(126) as a way of altering the practice of how science is conducted so that the dark side of the Henrietta Lacks’ story does not happen again. Tsing states that “The story of decline offers no leftovers, no excess, nothing that escapes progress. Progress still controls us even in tales of ruination,”(21) in this way I find the devastating mutation of Henrietta Lacks’ cells, that contributed to her death, became this attribute of progressive science to detect and cure multiple diseases. The tale surrounding the image of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal life is an account of the kind of racial malpractice Henrietta Lacks endured as well as the positive innovation that came out of her destruction.
A concept of the anthropology of science and technology is the idea of technology and science correlating and renegotiating the aspects of social interactions. Stefana Broadbent is a tech anthropologist. This image is of her sharing her research of intimacy enabled by the internet. Broadbent’s speech on tech, especially mobile devices, echos Wajcman’s text stating the “customary split between public and private is now overlaid with and complicated by another layer of electronic network connections,” (158). The only difference is that Broadbent talks about technology as a vessel for loved ones to cross boundaries into other aspects of our lives. Ingold contributes to this concept because he states that “technical relations are embedded in social relations and can only be understood in the relational matrix, as one aspect of human sociality,” (314). Ingold’s statement promotes the concept of technology’s inability to exist independently of society’s social and cultural interactions.
An anthropological concept of science and technology would be the restorative, industrial and political use of genealogy to trace lineage as a tool for creating policy, gaining retribution, or seeking a connection. I found this image in an article that discusses the credibility of DNA testing being able to trace your lineage. I found this concept to be relatable to Duguay’s question of authenticity of Tinder as both industries churn out masses of data to “group” us for a profit when the data may or may not actually be true. Duguay’s states, “Tinder’s technological architecture, promotional materials, and related media, this hybrid theoretical framework is used to identify how Tinder configures an actor-network that establishes its app as the solution to users’ concerns, enrolls individuals in using its features in authenticity claims, and popularizes Tinder’s framing across public discourse,”(351). The same can be said for DNA testing as the same data and trends can be offered to a number of individuals of similar backgrounds. This same question of DNA offering authenticity can be seen in Reardon and Tallbear’s essay on the ownership of DNA. The authors state“what began as a potentially new mode of understanding genetics — as a storytelling practice — ends by enacting an old story: in the interest of promoting “European” knowledge, moral claims to access indigenous lands and bodies get made. This time such claims are not made on the ground that European culture and practices are superior but on the grounds of justice,”(5234). This piece of text displays the kind of perspective shift that this scientific practice is capable of claiming to pursue genealogy in a “progressive” manner.
An anthropological study of science and technology that was not covered in class would be the development of graphic design and animation. There is a case study that argues the use of anthropology to provide the primarily western academic discourse of animation studies to Sub-Saharan Africa. Anthropology is utilized as a bidirectional process where animation can possibly contribute to visual anthro-methodology. In turn, animation practice and principles would benefit from utilizing anthropological methods in order to eject centralized western views and understand the context of animation from other regions. This case study becomes a representative to a niche group of African animators skilled in their craft but unrecognized for their abilities and accomplishments.
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