The Anthropology of Potentiality in Biomedicine

Taussig, Karen Sue; Hoeyer, Klaus; Helmreich, Stefan

doi:10.1086/671401

Cited by 157 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 72 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…The clinic is a productive place in which to observe-as Taussig, Hoeyer, and Helmreich (2013) state in the introduction to this special issue of Current Anthropology-several "processes of becoming." Tracking these processes is valuable because they offer a site in which to observe the "articulations and practices" through which diverse participants negotiate "the task of being simultaneously biological things and human persons" in the face of moral claims that emerging medical technologies make on people's bodies (Taussig, Hoeyer, and Helmreich 2013). The social structures and material conditions at work within the clinic shape the ways that actors negotiate their relationships with one another, processes that through the lens of potentiality can be seen to work to secure an otherwise uncertain situation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential, Risk, and Return in Transnational Indian Gestational Surrogacy

Vora¹

2013

Current Anthropology

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Based on fieldwork at a transnational surrogacy clinic in India and analysis of assisted reproductive technology (ART) legislation under consideration in the Indian parliament, this paper examines how bodies become potentialized through a combination of technology and networks of social and economic inequality. In this process, the meaning that participants assign to bodies and social relationships mediated by bodies becomes destabilized in a way that allows some surrogates to imagine and work toward a connection to commissioning parents that will offer them long-term benefit. The politics that position the clinic to potentialize the bodies of surrogates-and as a result the relations between participants and their imagined outcomes-occur at a moment of global demand for ARTs. As such, they rely on differentiation of subjects culturally, geographically, and economically. This article examines how the potentializing of women's bodies as surrogates occurs at the nexus of political, medical, and social influences in one ART clinic and how the resulting social relations are negotiated between participants in the clinic.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential, Risk, and Return in Transnational Indian Gestational Surrogacy

Vora¹

2013

Current Anthropology

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“…The genotyping of the patient -achieved using a standardised technology for molecular measurement (Derksen, 2000;Keating and Cambrosio, 2005) -enables the production of genetic parameters related to the specific molecular condition of the patient. This practice bestows 'genuine plasticity' on the sample (Taussig et al, 2013): biological material extracted from the patient is transformed into something completely different and immaterial (that is, genetic variables) but at the same time is able to represent the patient itself.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translational biomedicine in action: Constructing biomarkers across laboratory and benchside

Crabu

2016

Soc Theory Health

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This article, based on ethnographic research conducted in a major Italian institution specialising in cancer care and research, provides insight into the clinical and basic research laboratory practices articulated around an experimental protocol designed to develop a biomarker. The article adopts an 'ecological' perspective matured in the field of science and technology studies of the translational process and suggests that biomedical activities are multi-directional, and cannot be understood in reductionist terms, that is, as a two-way linear transfer of bio-knowledge from the bench to bedside and back. I propose the notion of technomimicry, in its dual acceptation in the clinical and experimental sense, to understand the cognitive, social and material strategies involved in the circuit of migration of heterogeneous materials and information across scientific laboratories and clinics. Clinical and experimental technomimicry theoretically capture the multi-directional and multi-modal process of the re-location of materials and bio-knowledge from one site to another. These concepts also highlight how the epistemological boundaries of the clinic and laboratory are required to be mutually adjusted and continuously realigned in order to translate laboratory facts into clinical activities, and clinical evidence into researchable issues.

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“…In this sense, it is possible to observe that the presence of psychostimulants in the classroom is better described as the introduction of a potentiality. Thinking about psychostimulants as a potentiality entails that a highly dynamic and open-ended process must take place, a process that might lead a child to become different (Taussig, Hoeyer, & Helmreich, 2013). However, how this difference, introduced by the use of stimulant medication in the classroom, unfolds is open to different outcomes, which are dependent and rely on how stimulant medication becomes entangled with the other actors, particularly with children using it.…”

Section: Pharmaceutical Entanglementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pharmaceutical entanglements: an analysis of the multiple determinants of ADHD medication effects in a Chilean school

Navarro

Vrecko

2017

International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well

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This article draws upon findings from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a Chilean school to explore how the effects of globally circulating ADHD medications emerge within the localized contexts of everyday users. An analysis of observations of children on ADHD medications within classroom settings is developed which challenges the assumption, pervasive within biomedical paradigms, that the effects of such medications can be understood as resulting directly from their chemical properties and biological modes of action. Our case study highlights the significance of multiple, interacting determinants of drug effects in an everyday setting, focusing in particular on classroom dynamics, teacher–student relations, and the agency of children taking the medications. We conclude that while ADHD medications may act in part by altering physiological processes, an adequate account of their effects requires that analytic attention extends to the sociomaterial contexts in which medications and users are embedded.

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The Anthropology of Potentiality in Biomedicine

Cited by 157 publications

References 72 publications

Potential, Risk, and Return in Transnational Indian Gestational Surrogacy

Potential, Risk, and Return in Transnational Indian Gestational Surrogacy

Translational biomedicine in action: Constructing biomarkers across laboratory and benchside

Pharmaceutical entanglements: an analysis of the multiple determinants of ADHD medication effects in a Chilean school

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