Biosocieties最新文献

This article traces the history of India's first tertiary cancer hospital, Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH). TMH was originally conceived in 1932 as a philanthropic project by the Tatas, an elite Parsi business family in Bombay. The founding of TMH represented a form of philanthro-capitalism which both enabled the Tatas to foster a communal acceptance for big businesses in Bombay and provide the Tatas with the opportunity to place stakes in the emerging nuclear research economy seen as essential to the scientific nationalist sentiment of the post-colonial state. In doing this, the everyday activities of TMH placed a heavy emphasis on nuclear research. In a time when radium for the treatment of cancer was still seen as 'quackery' in much of the world, the philanthro-capitalist investment and the interest in nuclear research by the post-colonial state provided an environment where radium medicine was able to be validated. The validation of radiotherapy at TMH influenced how other cancer hospitals in India developed and also provided significant resources for cancer research in early-mid twentieth century India. Ultimately, this article identifies ways in which cancer comes to be seen as relevant in the global south and raises questions on the relationship between local and global actors in setting health priorities.

The ever-expanding availability of reproductive technologies, the continued roll-out of 'family planning' and maternity services across low- and middle-income settings and the rapid development of the fertility industry mean that it is more likely than ever that individuals, especially women and gender non-conforming people, will engage with more than one RT at some point in their life. These multiple engagements with RTs will affect users' expectations and uptake, as well as the technologies' availability, commercial success, ethical status and social meanings. We argue that an integrated approach to the study of RTs and their users not only makes for better research, but also more politically conscious research, which questions some of the ideological precepts that have led to reproduction being parcelled out into biomedical specialisations and a disproportionate focus on particular forms of reproduction in particular disciplines within public health and social science research. We offer this article as part of a wider movement in the study of reproduction and reproductive technologies, which takes inspiration from the reproductive justice framework to address forms of exclusion, discrimination and stratification that are perpetuated in the development and application of reproductive technologies and the ways in which they are studied and theorised.

This article critically examines UK biometric policymaking by charting the bodies identified by the 2018 Home Office Biometric Strategy as playing key roles in the oversight of biometric data used in law enforcement and other related functions. The article argues that oversight actors are embedded in biometric imaginaries promoted by the UK Home Office and the devolved Scottish administration. By mapping oversight of UK biometrics policy together with developments in Scotland, the article challenges sociotechnical imaginaries studies which assume the power of national governments to project dominant, cohesive and instrumental visions. The article peels away that image to reveal UK biometric policy as located within a patchwork in which embedded commissioners, regulators and advisors challenge biometric imaginaries through interpretive flexibility and standpoint. By identifying technical, operational, legislative and ethical issues, these actors challenge the UK government imaginary and act as channels of critique between it and wider stakeholder communities. The article further challenges assumptions concerning the cohesion of national imaginaries by highlighting a diverging approach to biometric governance in Scotland. The article uses these observations to sketch a means to further characterise the notion of the biometric imaginary and to address biometric policymaking more widely.