Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies
Intersections of Inquiry

Interdisciplinary collection of essays on the influence and development of new medical technologies.

Margaret Lock (Edited by), Allan Young (Edited by), Alberto Cambrosio (Edited by)

9780521655682, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 31 July 2000

308 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.42 kg

'This volume's strength lies in its multiple understandings of scientific objects and practices. … It is still, a decade after publication, relevant to continuing concerns, reflecting the continuing lack of agreement in epistemology, but approaches that nonetheless, articulate new knowledge.' The Journal of Biosocial Science

This stimulating collection of essays is the product of face-to-face dialogues among anthropologists, sociologists, and philosopher-historians, all of whom focus their attention on the newly created biomedical technologies and their application in practice. Drawing on ethnographic and historical case studies, the authors show how biomedical technologies are produced through the agencies of tools and techniques, scientists and doctors, funding bodies, patients, clients, and the public. Despite shared concerns, these essays reveal that the authors have achieved no consensus about the objectives of their research, and the deep epistemological divides clearly remain - making for provocative reading.

1. Introduction Alberto Cambrosio, Allan Young and Margaret Lock
Part I. Epochal Transitions? Biomedicine and the Transformation of Socionature: 2. Beyond nature and culture: modes of reasoning in the age of molecular biology and medicine Hans-Jorg Rheinberger
3. Epochs, presents, events Paul Rabinow
Part II. Laboratories and Clinics: The Material Culture of Biomedicine: 4. Trustworthy knowledge and desperate patients: clinical tests for new drugs from cancer to AIDS Ilana Lowy
5. Pathology and the clinic: an ethnographic presentation of two atheroscleroses Annemarie Mol
6. 'Real compared to what?': diagnosing leukemias and lymphomas Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio
7. History, hystery, and psychiatric styles of reasoning Allan Young
Part III. Technologies and Bodies: The Extended Networks of Biomedicine: 8. Screening the body: the Pap smear and the mammogram Patricia A. Kaufert
9. Extra chromosomes and blue tulips: medico-familial interpretations Rayna Rapp
10. When explanations rest: 'good-enough' brain science and the new sociomedical disorders Joseph Dumit
11. On dying twice: culture, technology, and the determination of death Margaret Lock
12. The practice of organ transplants: networks, documents, translations Veena Das.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]