The Human Genome Diversity Project
An Ethnography of Scientific Practice
1st Edition
Published on 12. May 2005
978-0-511-07931-3 (ISBN)
Description
The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) was launched in 1991 by a group of population geneticists whose aim was to map genetic diversity in hundreds of human populations by tracing the similarities and differences between them. It quickly became controversial and was accused of racism and 'bad science' because of the special interest paid to sampling cell material from isolated and indigenous populations. The author spent a year carrying out participant observation in two of the laboratories involved and provides fascinating insights into daily routines and technologies used in those laboratories and also into issues of normativity, standardization and naturalisation. Drawing on debates and theoretical perspectives from across the social sciences, M'charek explores the relationship between the tools used to produce knowledge and the knowledge thus produced in a way that illuminates the HGDP but also contributes to our broader understanding of the contemporary life sciences and their social implications.
Reviews / Votes
'M'Charek offers the reader a fascinating first-hand account of science-in-practice at two of the laboratories involved in the Human Genome Diversity Project, but this is more than just another instalment in the now well-established tradition of ethnography in/of the laboratory. ... engagingly written ...'. Environment and Planning AMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cambridge University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
File size
1,91 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-511-07931-3 (9780511079313)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2005
Cambridge University Press
€122.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Book
01/2005
Cambridge University Press
€59.10
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Amade M'charek is Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology and the Department of Poltical Science, University of Amsterdam and is Lecturer in Science, Technology and Public Management.
Content
Introduction: The Human Genome Diversity Project; 1. Technologies of populations: making differences and similarities between Turkish and Dutch males; 3. Ten chimps in a laboratory: or how a human genetic marker may become a good genetic marker for typing chimps; 4. Naturalisation of a reference sequence: Anderson or the Mitochondrial Eve of modern genetics; 5. The traffic in males and other stories on the enactment of the sexes in studies of genetic lineage; 6. Technologies of similarity and difference or how to do politics with DNA.
