Paper short abstract:

Explores the 'entangled biographies' of several long-term scientific organizations that have been supporting HIV/AIDS investigations, with a focus the emergence of a shared 'ecology of infrastructures'. Themes include standardization, inclusion & exclusion, and historical epistemology and ontology.

Paper long abstract:

In taking a large-scale and long-term view of an infrastructure, we must also acknowledge that the endeavor will travel in tandem with other long-term infrastructures. This presentation tracks an ecology of infrastructures formed by several AIDS cohort studies, each focusing on a particular constituency: men, gay and bisexual men, women, intravenous drug users, and so on. Each is a distinct study, with its own objects of research, protocols, procedures and localized sites of investigation. But, over time, they have influenced each other in various ways e.g., sharing research objects and investigators, inspiring organizational structures, or shaping common standardization regimes. Together these form an ecology of entangled biographies, both discrete and interdependent, and collectively shaping what we can and cannot know in the domain of HIV disease.