Lively Capital: Biotechnologies, Ethics and Governance in Global Markets, October 2004

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

This is a proposal for a workshop entitled "Lively Capital: Biotechnologies, Ethics and Governance in Global Markets," to be held at the Anthropology Department, University of California, Irvine in October 2004. $10,000 is being requested from NSF for the conduct of his workshop. This is in addition to funds (amounting to $27,000) that are being requested from two other funding sources: The University of California Humanities Research Institute and the Newkirk Center for Science and Society at UC Irvine. The workshop will bring together scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) who adopt a range of disciplinary perspectives (including anthropology, history, sociology, law and political science, and the life sciences, to name some) whose work addresses various aspects of ethics and governance of emergent biotechnologies in global marketplaces. Invited participants will include some of the most established scholars in STS, along with younger scholars who are at an advanced stage of their research projects. There will be an explicit focus on comparative perspectives, so that the global magnitude and scale of the modes of production and impacts of biotechology can be adequately reflected. The workshop will last for 3 days, and will be open to attendees from departments at UC Irvine and nearby campuses. The papers presented at the workshop will be collected into a series of edited volumes on "Lively Capital." The proposed workshop will represent the cutting-edge of enquiries in STS around issues of biotechnology and society. As it will involve leading scholars in the field, and be hosted by a department that is well known for its commitment to fostering inter-disciplinary conversations on questions of modernity, it will be an activity of high intellectual merit and considerable significance in academic STS and anthropology circles. In addition to its academic impacts, the workshop will foster conversations between social science and life science departments at UC Irvine, and will contribute to wider public and policy debates n the nature and impacts of emergent biotechnologies.