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<font size=2><b>Please RSVP to
<a href="mailto:sang-hyun_kim@ksg.harvard.edu">
sang-hyun_kim@ksg.harvard.edu</a> by
</font><font size=2 color="#FF0000">Feb. 29 (Friday)</font><font size=2>.
<br>
</b> <br>
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<br>
<br>
</font><div align="center"><font size=4><b>STS Circle at Harvard: March 3
(Monday), 2008<br>
</b></font><font size=2> <br>
<br>
</font><font size=5><b><i>Science, Subjectivity, and the Structure of
<br>
"Ethical Problems" in the Environmental Health Sciences<br>
</i></b></font><font size=2> <br>
<br>
</font><font size=4><b>Sara Shostak<br>
</b></font>(Department of Sociology, Brandeis University)<br>
<font size=2> <br><br>
</font><font size=4><b>12:15-2:00 p.m. at 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite
100, Room 106<br>
</b></font></div>
<font size=2> <br>
<br>
</font><b>Abstract:<br>
</b><font size=2> <br>
Historically, environmental health scientists worked primarily with
animal models and focused on producing knowledge that would inform the
regulation of chemicals in the ambient environment (e.g., air, water,
soil). Consequently, neither individual human beings nor genetically
demarcated subpopulations traditionally have been subjects of
environmental health research. In contrast, as environmental health
scientists increasingly take up genetic/genomic modes of knowledge
production, they "bring the human in" to environmental health
governance in novel ways. <br>
This paper describes the efforts of environmental
health scientists to use molecular technologies to focus their research
inside the human body, ascertain human genetic variations in
susceptibility to adverse outcomes following environmental exposures, and
identify individuals who have sustained DNA damage as a consequence of
exposure to chemicals in the environment. Each of these scientific
practices and their proposed applications in biomedical and regulatory
settings instantiates specific notions of the human subject and its
agency, possibilities, and responsibilities vis-à-vis health and
illness.<br>
Many environmental health scientists believe that
these new modes of knowledge production have "ethical, legal, and
social implications" (ELSI). As has been the case with other
emergent genetic/genomic projects, scientists and policy makers have
turned to bioethics for help in creating knowledge and guidelines to
govern such "implications." However, in this paper, I
contend that the limitations in the bioethical and scientific notions of
the human subject make it difficult to identify or address adequately the
broader social factors that shape the consequences of molecularization in
the environmental health sciences. In contrast, I highlight the
contribution of approaches developed in sociology and STS for
investigating the relationships between scientific knowledge, forms of
subjectivity, and dimensions of the social organization that structure
the "ethical implications" of science.<br>
<br>
</font><b>Biography:</b><font size=2> <br>
<br>
Sara Shostak is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University.
Dr. Shostak's research centers on emerging relationships between science,
medicine, subjectivity and social organization. Her current book project
<i>Defining Vulnerabilities: Genes, the Environment, and the Body
Politic</i> examines the emergence of genetic/genomic disciplines in the
environmental health sciences and their consequences for the wider arena
of environmental health in the United States. Her analysis draws on data
from in-depth qualitative interviews, ethnographic participant
observation, and historical materials, enabling consideration of the
perspectives of environmental health scientists, risk assessors, policy
makers, and environmental health and justice activists. Dr. Shostak is
currently working on a study that examines whether and how genetic
information enters into the experience of having epilepsy or of being the
family member of a person with epilepsy. Another current project looks at
how people make use of "nature" and "nurture" in
their accounts of inequalities across outcomes such as health,
intelligence, and success in life. Prior to coming to Brandeis, she was a
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia
University. <br>
<br>
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For more information about the Harvard STS circle, please visit our
website at:
<a href="http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/sts/events/weeklymeeting.htm">
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/sts/events/weeklymeeting.htm</a> <br>
or e-mail to:
<a href="mailto:sang-hyun_kim@ksg.harvard.edu">
sang-hyun_kim@ksg.harvard.edu</a> or
<a href="mailto:jhurlbut@fas.harvard.edu">jhurlbut@fas.harvard.edu</a>
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