Making things flow: value- and world-making practices in biomedicine

Research output: Contribution to conferenceConference abstract for conferenceResearchpeer-review

Flows of materials, bodies and knowledge are essential to contemporary biomedicine. Such flows are often unnoticed or taken for granted, except “when things don’t work” and flows are hindered. In this panel, we explore not only what and how things move in biomedicine, but what it takes to make things move across contexts and actors. Of specific interest is the intertwining relationship between flows and the production of value. The making of (bio)value entails practices to render, rehabilitate and/or transform entities that would often otherwise be considered waste into productive resources (Waldby 2002). In other words, flows tend to signify value. Value-making flows also often entail pauses and temporary immobility. This is the case when, as part of a relocation process, entities are put into storage. We wish to crack open such practices enabling the repurposing of entities to new potential, and explore the relationship between flowing and storing. Also of interest are questions of legitimate and illegitimate flows. While some entities, like genomics data, are regularly being exchanged and moved, others are left out. Interrogating what is let in and out of productive systems in biomedicine, we unpack the assumptions and underlying rationales for including some rather than others from value-making flows. By examining local and global flows, this panel speaks directly to this year’s conference theme questioning how sociotechnical infrastructures are embedded in specific times and spaces. Ultimately, we wish to explore how flows are materially enacted and involved in different forms of value-making and world-making.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2020
Publication statusPublished - 2020
EventEASST + 4S JOINT CONFERENCE: Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and Agency of STS in Emerging Worlds - Prague, Czech Republic
Duration: 18 Aug 202021 Aug 2020
https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/

Conference

ConferenceEASST + 4S JOINT CONFERENCE
CountryCzech Republic
CityPrague
Period18/08/202021/08/2020
Internet address

ID: 243118402