Scholars Award: The Co-production of Knowledge by Reproductive Justice Advocates and Molecular Biologists

Emory University, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will examine how molecular biologists and social justice advocates are responding to the recent NIH policy that would ensure sex-balanced research at the preclinical level. Both molecular biologists and reproductive justice advocates are stakeholders in the production of scientific knowledge regarding female reproductive physiology. The project aims to demonstrate that scientific practices and social justice practices can be brought together to produce new understandings of female reproductive biology and health. This interdisciplinary approach and diversification of ideas will be of benefit to our understanding of reproductive health. It will have a significant impact on the participation of women and other minorities in STEM fields. The main products that will result from this research include a book project and a web-based interactive narrative. The book will benefit readers who are interested in STS, molecular biology, and neuroscience. The web-based interactive narrative will record the views of reproductive justice advocates and molecular biologists on the issue of preclinical sex-balanced research and may be used as a teaching tool to distribute the findings of this project to a wider audience. This project will directly contribute to the education and interdisciplinary training of two graduate students, one from the biomedical and molecular sciences, and one from gender studies. As there is a growing interest on the part of STS scholars to develop joint vocabularies between diverse communities of knowers, this project aims to develop opportunities for shared inquiry between molecular biologists and reproductive justice advocates. The theoretical and methodological approaches of this project are grounded in practice-oriented STS approaches. The project utilizes two key analytical frameworks including an awareness of the co-construction of science and society, and the application of social justice perspectives. These perspectives recognize that certain bodies, such as people of color, reproductive bodies, disabled bodies, and animals, have in the past been subjected to unfair treatment in the name of scientific and technological progress. Ethnographic studies will be conducted on two molecular biology labs working on epigenetics and sex differences research, and two reproductive justice organizations. The scientific questions that will be posed will closely examine and contextualize responses to the new NIH policy. Participants will be asked to consider central questions such as who is producing knowledge in this area, and for whom is this knowledge being produced? At what cost is this knowledge being produced and who and what are the material agents contributing to this research? Interviews and oral histories of molecular biologists and reproductive justice advocates, combined with participant and materials observation of laboratories and offices spaces, will provide a reflective space to consider the co-production of biologies, social justice movements, and scientific experimentation.