Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more

Recommended product

Popular links

Popular links


Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies

Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies

Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies

Intersections of Inquiry
Margaret Lock, McGill University, Montréal
Allan Young, McGill University, Montréal
Alberto Cambrosio, McGill University, Montréal
August 2000
Available
Paperback
9780521655682
£36.00
GBP
Paperback
USD
eBook

    This stimulating collection of essays is the product of face-to-face dialogues among anthropologists, sociologists, and philosopher-historians, all of whom focus their attention on the newly created biomedical technologies and their application in practice. Drawing on ethnographic and historical case studies, the authors show how biomedical technologies are produced through the agencies of tools and techniques, scientists and doctors, funding bodies, patients, clients, and the public. Despite shared concerns, these essays reveal that the authors have achieved no consensus about the objectives of their research, and the deep epistemological divides clearly remain - making for provocative reading.

    • Interdisciplinary collaboration involving anthropologists, sociologists and historians of science
    • Stimulating essays that deal with how medical technologies work in practice
    • Contributions from leading scholars in several fields

    Reviews & endorsements

    'This volume's strength lies in its multiple understandings of scientific objects and practices. … It is still, a decade after publication, relevant to continuing concerns, reflecting the continuing lack of agreement in epistemology, but approaches that nonetheless, articulate new knowledge.' The Journal of Biosocial Science

    See more reviews

    Product details

    August 2000
    Paperback
    9780521655682
    308 pages
    229 × 152 × 18 mm
    0.42kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Introduction Alberto Cambrosio, Allan Young and Margaret Lock
    • Part I. Epochal Transitions? Biomedicine and the Transformation of Socionature:
    • 2. Beyond nature and culture: modes of reasoning in the age of molecular biology and medicine Hans-Jorg Rheinberger
    • 3. Epochs, presents, events Paul Rabinow
    • Part II. Laboratories and Clinics: The Material Culture of Biomedicine:
    • 4. Trustworthy knowledge and desperate patients: clinical tests for new drugs from cancer to AIDS Ilana Lowy
    • 5. Pathology and the clinic: an ethnographic presentation of two atheroscleroses Annemarie Mol
    • 6. 'Real compared to what?': diagnosing leukemias and lymphomas Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio
    • 7. History, hystery, and psychiatric styles of reasoning Allan Young
    • Part III. Technologies and Bodies: The Extended Networks of Biomedicine:
    • 8. Screening the body: the Pap smear and the mammogram Patricia A. Kaufert
    • 9. Extra chromosomes and blue tulips: medico-familial interpretations Rayna Rapp
    • 10. When explanations rest: 'good-enough' brain science and the new sociomedical disorders Joseph Dumit
    • 11. On dying twice: culture, technology, and the determination of death Margaret Lock
    • 12. The practice of organ transplants: networks, documents, translations Veena Das.
      Contributors
    • Alberto Cambrosio, Allan Young, Margaret Lock, Hans-Jorg Rheinberger, Paul Rabinow, Ilana Lowy, Annemarie Mol, Peter Keating, Patricia A. Kaufert, Rayna Rapp, Joseph Dumit, Margaret Lock, Veena Das

    • Editors
    • Margaret Lock , McGill University, Montréal
    • Allan Young , McGill University, Montréal
    • Alberto Cambrosio , McGill University, Montréal