Expose and protect: reflections on experimental scientific practices based on a case study

Abstract Based on ethnographic research, the article reflects on experimental surgical practices related to the development of ventricular assist devices (the so-called ‘artificial heart’). Focusing on the relationships between animal models and the numerous professionals involved in the experiment, the hypothesis of this article pinpoints the unavoidable game of exposing and protecting all the agents who establish relationships therein, as a condition for understanding and innovating on legitimate grounds. This game, ethnographically followed step by step, meets both scientific and ethical imperatives. The reflection leads us to consider, among other things, the sensitive, decisive character of otherness regarding experimental animals in the course of the experiments. According to the aforementioned hypothesis, this is when notions of participation and disparticipation in the game of otherness with these animal models seem to clarify the economy, simultaneously affective and intelligible, put into practice in the relationships performed therein.