Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon field work examining the research and clinical practice in the field of cardiac genetics, this paper will examine the consequences of understandings of the social mind on creative, productive processes across institutional boundaries defined by heterogeneous forms of cognition.

Paper long abstract:

By de-centring the locus of human cognition from the individual to the collective level the social mind emerges as the relational assemblage of brains, bodies and the material environment as held within socially (re)produced cultural/institutional structures. Such a model of human cognition helps us to understand the distinctions between the creative and productive value of practices across disparate epistemic spaces. Yet in spaces of complex social organisation multiple groups are required to interact and often collaborate. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork examining the organisation of research and clinical practice broadly in the field of cardiac genetics, this paper will examine the modes by which actors enacting heterogeneous cognitive forms within everyday practice are able to engage across institutional conditions in situated practice as a means of creating knowledge and providing outcomes that are valued beyond the boundaries of the collective cognitive group.