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- Convenors:
-
Timothy Neale
(Deakin University)
Caroline Schuster (The Australian National University)
Emma Kowal (Deakin University)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Material Worlds
- Location:
- WPE Paraparap
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Melbourne
Short Abstract:
Today, just as science and technology pervade everyday life, research and concepts from science and technology studies (STS) are becoming ubiquitous in anthropology. This panel seeks to "surface" STS's influence in anthropology in the region as well as genealogies of STS rooted in the region.
Long Abstract:
While in one sense, the study of the social life of technology is a very old concern of anthropology, dating back to 19th Century interests in "material culture," anthropology's interest in distinctly scientific practices and institutions is perhaps (disputably) four decades old. Today, just as science and technology pervade everyday life and participation in political, socio-economic, and public life, research and concepts from science and technology studies (STS) are ubiquitous presences in contemporary anthropology, to the point that it can be difficult to parse their influence and how they become warrants for ethnographic claims. In this panel, we seek to "surface" some of the imminent and emergent influence of STS in anthropology in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, and uncover genealogies of STS specifically rooted in scholarship in the region. What does a concern for the social life of technology entail when viewed from the vantage of Asia-Pacific? We seek contributions that examine new and old techno-imaginaries, technoscientific expertise and governance, corporate or citizen science, the real of virtual worlds, modelling and calculation including in finance, medical research in and out of the lab, the labour of scientific knowledge, postcolonial and decolonial science, experimental aftermaths, histories of the anthropology of science and technology, feminist STS, or other topics altogether.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 November, 2022, -Stephanie Lloyd (Université Laval) Chani Bonventre
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, we examine the diversity underlying “normal hearing” with Australia’s “bionic ear”, ask what normal renders invisible, and consider why it matters when normal displaces questions of how people get there.
Paper long abstract:
“Most young audiologists I work with have never seen a deaf child who can’t talk.” This is how an Australian clinical audiologist who had worked closely with the team that had developed one of the first commercialized cochlear implants (CIs) summarized the experiences of professionals in her field in 2018. Clinical audiology literature supports this statement, suggesting that many people with CIs can test “normally” based on assessments of hearing using pure tones and single sounds in audiometric booths. Furthermore, the speech of many people with CIs is indistinguishable from their typical hearing peers. However, a significant literature also suggests that the hearing of people with CIs is different than that of their typical hearing peers. Different, in this case, includes (1) difficulties hearing in loud environments or situations with multiple speakers, and (2) use of different sensory inputs and neurocognitive processes to hear, as compared to typical hearers. What, then, counts as normal? Where (audiometric booth, day to day environments)? According to what measures? Moreover, does “normal” correspond to outcomes measures (e.g., speech, standard tests) or the biological-technological processes that lead to an outcome, and what if one is “normal” (the former) and the other is not (the latter), according to standards of “normal hearing”? In this paper, we will examine the diversity underlying “normal hearing” with Australia’s “bionic ear”, ask what normal renders invisible, and consider why it matters when normal displaces questions of how people get there.
Benjamin Hegarty (Deakin University)
Paper short abstract:
PrEP, billed as a pill a day to prevent HIV, has emerged as a key component of global efforts to achieve "the end of AIDS." This paper draws on ethnographic research about a PrEP trial in progress in Indonesia to consider the relationship between scientific objects and social subjects.
Paper long abstract:
PrEP, billed as a pill a day to prevent HIV, has emerged as a key component of efforts to accelerate the epidemic control response and meet the global target of the "end of AIDS" by 2030. Governments reliant on international donor funding for HIV programs are now encouraged to incorporate PrEP into HIV programs for MSM, transgender women and other "key populations" assessed as meeting a specific risk profile. In April 2022, Indonesia commenced a long-delayed demonstration trial for PrEP. Patients meeting a specific risk profile could obtain a 30-day supply of a single pill of generic Truvada from public clinics in 21 clinics in 12 provinces. Emerging out of longstanding research about HIV in Indonesia underway since 2014, this paper draws on ethnographic data collected from the period since the PrEP trial began in April 2022, including participant observation in webinars, training and consultation meetings, grey literature, and interviews. Kane Race described PrEP as a "reluctant object," a status conferred by its, "putative association with the supposed excesses of unbridled sex" (2016, 6). Building on his insight, this paper asks: what theoretical frameworks at the intersection of STS and queer theory might be gleaned from addressing an emergent PrEP trial in Indonesia? An ethnography of a PrEP trial in progress reveals how the biomedicalisation of HIV prevention both transforms the temporal horizon of living with HIV in Indonesia and reflects dynamic relations between scientific objects and social subjects in light of ongoing forms of colonial, racial and economic inequality.
Henrietta Byrne (University of Adelaide) Jaya Keaney (University of Melbourne)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation explores how epigenetic knowledge production in Australia is being both supported and countered by Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, and how this relates to broader critiques of the epistemic power of biological sciences when making claims about trauma in colonial contexts.
Paper long abstract:
Epigenetics is a popular form of post-genomic science which seeks to show how environmental factors can get ‘under the skin’ and shape gene expression across generations. In colonial states such as Australia, this science is increasingly focusing on inter-generational trauma within Indigenous communities. In this presentation, we draw on interviews and fieldwork conducted in 2020-21 with Australian researchers and health workers to explore how current lively discourses about the change-making potential of epigenetic knowledge as related to trauma are being both circulated and contested, and relate these positions to broader critiques of the epistemic power of biological sciences when making claims about trauma in colonial contexts. In particular, we propose 'colonial unknowing' (Vimalassery et al, 2016) as a useful frame through which to view epigenetic knowledge production and scientific expertise in a colonial landscape, as it allows for a troubling of concepts of evidence and rediscovery.
Rozanna Lilley (Macquarie University) Michael Yudell (Arizona State University) Bec Poulsen (Macquarie University) Hannah Rapaport (Macquarie University) Elizabeth Pellicano (University College London)
Paper short abstract:
The Australian Autism Biobank includes biological samples & phenotypic data from almost 3,000 participants. This paper analyses interviews with 17 autistic participants, aged 12-22, about what they believe the purpose of the biobank is and how they feel about contributing data to this resource.
Paper long abstract:
Recently there has been a great deal of controversy about the ethics of autism biobanks and, more broadly, of genetic research into this complex neurodevelopmental difference. A key concern is that, despite the rhetoric of neurodiversity, such studies may be used for eugenic purposes. In this paper, we thematically analyse interviews from 17 autistic children and adults, aged 12-22 years, about their participation in the Australian Autism Biobank (AAB). The AAB contains both biological samples and phenotypic data (assessments and questionnaires) from almost 3,000 participants. It is intended as a resource for researchers. The young people we interviewed expressed a range of views about autism causation, the purpose of the biobank and their feelings about contributing data. Most had heard of theories about the relevance of genetics to autism and saw this as an integral part of personhood. A number of these interviewees expressed a love of science and an enjoyment of research participation. While some talked about preventing what they perceived as disabling aspects of autism, others thought that biobanks may help to promote the talents of autistic people through a greater understanding of difference. Listening to the views of these young people, we suggest, is vital to understanding some of the complexities of biobank participation, including the ways in which ideas about the value of different types of research and their potential future applications are negotiated. It also points to autistic young people’s sense of agency in scientific projects and the complexity of their knowledge, genetic and otherwise.