Science, Reason, Modernity: Readings for an Anthropology of the Contemporary provides an introduc... more Science, Reason, Modernity: Readings for an Anthropology of the Contemporary provides an introduction to a legacy of philosophical and social scientific thinking about sciences and their integral role in shaping modernities, a legacy that has contributed to a specifically anthropological form of inquiry. Anthropology, in this case, refers not only to the institutional boundaries of an academic discipline but also to a mode of conceptualizing and addressing a problem: how to analyze and diagnose the modern sciences in their troubled relationships with lived realities. Such an approach addresses the sciences as forms of life and illuminates how the diverse modes of reason, action, and passion that characterize the scientific life continue to shape our existences as late moderns.
The essays provided in this book—many of them classics across disciplines—have been arranged genealogically. They offer a particular route through a way of thinking that has come to be crucial in elucidating the contemporary question of science as a formal way of understanding life. The book specifies the historical dynamics by way of which problems of science and modernity become matters of serious reflection, as well as the multiple attempts to provide solutions to those problems.
The book’s aim is pedagogical. Its hope is that the constellation of texts it brings together will help students and scholars working on sciences become better equipped to think about scientific practices as anthropological problems.
Includes essays by: Hans Blumenberg, Georges Canguilhem, John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Immanuel Kant, Paul Rabinow, Max Weber.
National and municipal recycling programmes are typically premised on their ability to reduce was... more National and municipal recycling programmes are typically premised on their ability to reduce waste disposed in the landfill. However, a much wider variety of waste divestment conduits – such as trading with informal junk traders, making donations to charity, passing on items to family and friends – co-exist in many urban waste management landscapes. In this paper, we explore the cultures and economies of informal waste divestment practices in Singapore, in relation to the National Recycling Programme implemented by the government. We argue that one reason for the limited performance of the National Recycling Programme is because it reduces a relationship of (commodity) exchange or gift among persons, to an act of disposal in an impersonal recycling bin. Drawing on quantitatively and qualitatively obtained empirical data, we identify three frequently used conduits of divestment – junk traders, charity donations, and transfers to family and friends – that render radically different s...
Food safety dominates public discourse about health, life, and the body in China today. But incid... more Food safety dominates public discourse about health, life, and the body in China today. But incidents of ‘fake food’—including fake eggs and milk powder—raise new questions about how bodily threats are detected and evaluated, and have undermined trust not only in food, but also in official food regulations and tests. In response, new alternative food movements (including organic farms) are seeking to rebuild trust that food is real, not fake—but refuse to rely on official regulations. Drawing on theoretical literature on counterfeit goods and market devices, this paper examines how alternative food producers in Beijing, China qualify their food as authentic in a context where food fraud is expected. Whereas scholars have previously highlighted the role of interpersonal trust in alternative food markets, I argue that alternative farmers rely more on ‘popular certification’ devices—such as farm visits and taste tests—to materially certify the qualities of their food products. These tests differ from official certification because—rooted in sensory experience rather than instrumental tests—they are knowledge-making devices that are accessible to consumers. Linking agrarian change with the problems of knowledge explored by STS scholars, fake food points toward a renewed political economy of qualities.
On several occasions, the People’s Republic of China refused to share influenza viruses isolated ... more On several occasions, the People’s Republic of China refused to share influenza viruses isolated on their territory with the World Health Organization pandemic flu surveillance system. Scholars in STS and allied disciplines have described these disputes as examples of growing conflict between global health norms of free exchange and Asian state claims of viral sovereignty. However, the discussion has largely overlooked the fact that laboratories in China freely shared genetic sequence data from isolated viruses, even when they refused to ship physical samples, a fact that complicates the opposition of open data and viral sovereignty with the different material forms of the physical sample and the nucleotide sequence. This article provides a comprehensive comparison of the heterogeneous circulations of influenza virus samples and virus gene sequences in global health influenza surveillance and argues this difference is rooted in the different knowledge-control regimes designed for exchanging samples and sequences. Engaging with debates on the position of Asian science within global scientific circulations, the article suggests that Asian scientists confront a multiplicity of global scientific infrastructures and do not necessarily rely on the authority of nation-state sovereignty to reshape global exchanges.
Since the 1970s, virologists have pointed to South China as a hypothetical ‘epicenter’ of influen... more Since the 1970s, virologists have pointed to South China as a hypothetical ‘epicenter’ of influenza pandemics. In particular, several key studies highlighted the farming practice of ‘free-grazing’ ducks (fangyang) as the crucial ecological factor driving the emergence of new flu viruses. Following the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in 1997 and 2004, free-grazing ducks became a primary target of biosecurity interventions from global health agencies and China’s national government. This article compares the global health ‘problematization’ of free-grazing ducks as a pandemic threat with the manner in which duck farmers around Poyang Lake, China, engage with the dangers of disease in their flocks. Showing how both global health experts and duck farmers configure the uncertainty of disease against ideal modes of ordering the relations among species, I conclude by examining how these two problematizations interact in ways that mutually intensify – rather than moderate – uncertainty.
Science, Reason, Modernity: Readings for an Anthropology of the Contemporary provides an introduc... more Science, Reason, Modernity: Readings for an Anthropology of the Contemporary provides an introduction to a legacy of philosophical and social scientific thinking about sciences and their integral role in shaping modernities, a legacy that has contributed to a specifically anthropological form of inquiry. Anthropology, in this case, refers not only to the institutional boundaries of an academic discipline but also to a mode of conceptualizing and addressing a problem: how to analyze and diagnose the modern sciences in their troubled relationships with lived realities. Such an approach addresses the sciences as forms of life and illuminates how the diverse modes of reason, action, and passion that characterize the scientific life continue to shape our existences as late moderns.
The essays provided in this book—many of them classics across disciplines—have been arranged genealogically. They offer a particular route through a way of thinking that has come to be crucial in elucidating the contemporary question of science as a formal way of understanding life. The book specifies the historical dynamics by way of which problems of science and modernity become matters of serious reflection, as well as the multiple attempts to provide solutions to those problems.
The book’s aim is pedagogical. Its hope is that the constellation of texts it brings together will help students and scholars working on sciences become better equipped to think about scientific practices as anthropological problems.
Includes essays by: Hans Blumenberg, Georges Canguilhem, John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Immanuel Kant, Paul Rabinow, Max Weber.
National and municipal recycling programmes are typically premised on their ability to reduce was... more National and municipal recycling programmes are typically premised on their ability to reduce waste disposed in the landfill. However, a much wider variety of waste divestment conduits – such as trading with informal junk traders, making donations to charity, passing on items to family and friends – co-exist in many urban waste management landscapes. In this paper, we explore the cultures and economies of informal waste divestment practices in Singapore, in relation to the National Recycling Programme implemented by the government. We argue that one reason for the limited performance of the National Recycling Programme is because it reduces a relationship of (commodity) exchange or gift among persons, to an act of disposal in an impersonal recycling bin. Drawing on quantitatively and qualitatively obtained empirical data, we identify three frequently used conduits of divestment – junk traders, charity donations, and transfers to family and friends – that render radically different s...
Food safety dominates public discourse about health, life, and the body in China today. But incid... more Food safety dominates public discourse about health, life, and the body in China today. But incidents of ‘fake food’—including fake eggs and milk powder—raise new questions about how bodily threats are detected and evaluated, and have undermined trust not only in food, but also in official food regulations and tests. In response, new alternative food movements (including organic farms) are seeking to rebuild trust that food is real, not fake—but refuse to rely on official regulations. Drawing on theoretical literature on counterfeit goods and market devices, this paper examines how alternative food producers in Beijing, China qualify their food as authentic in a context where food fraud is expected. Whereas scholars have previously highlighted the role of interpersonal trust in alternative food markets, I argue that alternative farmers rely more on ‘popular certification’ devices—such as farm visits and taste tests—to materially certify the qualities of their food products. These tests differ from official certification because—rooted in sensory experience rather than instrumental tests—they are knowledge-making devices that are accessible to consumers. Linking agrarian change with the problems of knowledge explored by STS scholars, fake food points toward a renewed political economy of qualities.
On several occasions, the People’s Republic of China refused to share influenza viruses isolated ... more On several occasions, the People’s Republic of China refused to share influenza viruses isolated on their territory with the World Health Organization pandemic flu surveillance system. Scholars in STS and allied disciplines have described these disputes as examples of growing conflict between global health norms of free exchange and Asian state claims of viral sovereignty. However, the discussion has largely overlooked the fact that laboratories in China freely shared genetic sequence data from isolated viruses, even when they refused to ship physical samples, a fact that complicates the opposition of open data and viral sovereignty with the different material forms of the physical sample and the nucleotide sequence. This article provides a comprehensive comparison of the heterogeneous circulations of influenza virus samples and virus gene sequences in global health influenza surveillance and argues this difference is rooted in the different knowledge-control regimes designed for exchanging samples and sequences. Engaging with debates on the position of Asian science within global scientific circulations, the article suggests that Asian scientists confront a multiplicity of global scientific infrastructures and do not necessarily rely on the authority of nation-state sovereignty to reshape global exchanges.
Since the 1970s, virologists have pointed to South China as a hypothetical ‘epicenter’ of influen... more Since the 1970s, virologists have pointed to South China as a hypothetical ‘epicenter’ of influenza pandemics. In particular, several key studies highlighted the farming practice of ‘free-grazing’ ducks (fangyang) as the crucial ecological factor driving the emergence of new flu viruses. Following the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in 1997 and 2004, free-grazing ducks became a primary target of biosecurity interventions from global health agencies and China’s national government. This article compares the global health ‘problematization’ of free-grazing ducks as a pandemic threat with the manner in which duck farmers around Poyang Lake, China, engage with the dangers of disease in their flocks. Showing how both global health experts and duck farmers configure the uncertainty of disease against ideal modes of ordering the relations among species, I conclude by examining how these two problematizations interact in ways that mutually intensify – rather than moderate – uncertainty.
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Books by Lyle Fearnley
The essays provided in this book—many of them classics across disciplines—have been arranged genealogically. They offer a particular route through a way of thinking that has come to be crucial in elucidating the contemporary question of science as a formal way of understanding life. The book specifies the historical dynamics by way of which problems of science and modernity become matters of serious reflection, as well as the multiple attempts to provide solutions to those problems.
The book’s aim is pedagogical. Its hope is that the constellation of texts it brings together will help students and scholars working on sciences become better equipped to think about scientific practices as anthropological problems.
Includes essays by: Hans Blumenberg, Georges Canguilhem, John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Immanuel Kant, Paul Rabinow, Max Weber.
Papers by Lyle Fearnley
flu viruses. Following the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in 1997 and 2004, free-grazing ducks became a primary target of biosecurity interventions from global health agencies and China’s national government. This article compares the global health ‘problematization’ of free-grazing ducks as a pandemic threat with the manner in which duck farmers around Poyang Lake, China, engage with the dangers of disease in their flocks. Showing how both global health experts and duck farmers configure the uncertainty of disease against ideal modes of ordering the relations among species, I conclude by
examining how these two problematizations interact in ways that mutually intensify – rather than moderate – uncertainty.
The essays provided in this book—many of them classics across disciplines—have been arranged genealogically. They offer a particular route through a way of thinking that has come to be crucial in elucidating the contemporary question of science as a formal way of understanding life. The book specifies the historical dynamics by way of which problems of science and modernity become matters of serious reflection, as well as the multiple attempts to provide solutions to those problems.
The book’s aim is pedagogical. Its hope is that the constellation of texts it brings together will help students and scholars working on sciences become better equipped to think about scientific practices as anthropological problems.
Includes essays by: Hans Blumenberg, Georges Canguilhem, John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Immanuel Kant, Paul Rabinow, Max Weber.
flu viruses. Following the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in 1997 and 2004, free-grazing ducks became a primary target of biosecurity interventions from global health agencies and China’s national government. This article compares the global health ‘problematization’ of free-grazing ducks as a pandemic threat with the manner in which duck farmers around Poyang Lake, China, engage with the dangers of disease in their flocks. Showing how both global health experts and duck farmers configure the uncertainty of disease against ideal modes of ordering the relations among species, I conclude by
examining how these two problematizations interact in ways that mutually intensify – rather than moderate – uncertainty.