Reconfiguring Nature and Culture: Intersections of Medical Anthropology and Technoscience Studies

Casper, Monica J.; Koenig, Barbara A.

doi:10.1525/maq.1996.10.4.02a00080

Cited by 40 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is summarized poignantly by Van der Geest and Finkler (2004), when they claim that the hospital is ''not an island but mainland'' deeply interwoven with its surroundings (that is, economics, politics, history, cultural, and social organization). At the same time, these studies support the general insight that technical artifacts and associated practices are indispensable constituents and ordering agents of human existence in all spheres of life, as stated elsewhere (see, e.g., Akrich 1992;Casper and Koenig 1996;Harraway 1985;Ingold 2000;Latour 1993;Mauss 1992Mauss [1934; Mol 2002;Pfaffenberger 1992;Pickering 1993;Sigaut 1994). But fewer social science scholars have looked at biomedicine not between countries but between medical domains.…”

Section: Studying Biomedicine's Materialitysupporting

confidence: 85%

“…So far only a few attempts have been made to clarify the relationship between analytical approaches and concepts of (medical) anthropology and SSTS=STS (Casper and Koenig 1996;Cambrosio, Young, and Lock 2000;Lock and Nguyen 2010). Cambrosio and colleagues (2000) found the common ground of both disciplines in their aim to deconstruct dichotomies (such as between nature and culture) and to understand how these dichotomies are produced.…”

Section: Theorizing Biomedical Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Biomedical Techniques in Context: On the Appropriation of Biomedical Procedures and Artifacts

Hadolt

Hörbst

Müller-Rockstroh

2012

Medical Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

On the assumption that technical practices and artifacts are fundamental constituents of individual and collective attempts to order lives and bodies in health and sickness, in this introduction, we set out three central propositions. First, medical techniques have to take center stage in research on biomedicine. Second, as medical artifacts travel worldwide, they become part of the processes of sociocultural appropriation. Third, anthropologists have to consider how to study the transformations associated with such appropriation and how much they need to know about the technical aspects of their objects of study. The mutual transformative potential of both biomedical artifacts and practices and the new contexts of application have so far been undertheorized in medical anthropology--a gap that we aim to close with our reflections and the collection of empirical studies of various biomedical techniques in this issue.

show abstract

Section: Studying Biomedicine's Materialitysupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Theorizing Biomedical Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomedical Techniques in Context: On the Appropriation of Biomedical Procedures and Artifacts

Hadolt

Hörbst

Müller-Rockstroh

2012

Medical Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Contested objects, such as the fetus, exemplify the disappearance of the last great divide: that is, they exemplify the effacement of what Mazlish (1967) referred to as the ‘fourth discontinuity’ between human and machine. Indeed, biomedical technologies, in particular, are the contested sites and even the ‘fault line’ where such entities as nature and culture, person and object, and human and nonhuman meet, mingle, and regularly transgress traditional boundaries (Casper & Koenig 1996, p. 525).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology and humane nursing care: (ir)reconcilable or invented difference?

Barnard

Sandelowski

2001

Journal of Advanced Nursing

155

143

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Contrary to modern Western thought, nature is not actually separated from culture, but rather becomes part of the social world [13], interacts with culture, and is constructed by culture [15]. Humans in modern society interact with nature and have made new environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

The Ambiguity of Hygiene and Taste-Focusing on the Fish-Farming Industry in Vietnam

Lee¹

2017

Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The terms 'cultured fish' and 'wild fish' have emerged recently as a reflection of socio-economic circumstances, but only some papers in Vietnam have researched them. This paper examines the human-nature relationship articulated in the distinction between cultured fish and wild fish in rural Vietnam. Nature has been socially constructed and considered in different ways according to its relationship with the social arena. In wild fish, the appraisal standard is taste, the state of being pollution-free and ingredients beneficial to the human body are emphasized. Nature that does not relate to human intervention is perceived as good. If humans intervene in nature, the nature is polluted and becomes useless to humans. The view that nature possesses independent productivity and is a subject of awe, a self-contained being, and an autonomous entity, appears in the consumption of wild fish. But in industrial fish-farming, elements such as export, productivity, and economic gains are taken very seriously, and hygiene and nutrition of fish are emphasized. Wild nature is considered unsanitary, dirty, wild, and dangerous. It is through control by humans that the feral state of nature is minimized and nature becomes sanitary, vitalized, and useful to human beings. In industrial fish-farming, under the guise of scientific control, people get rid of the dangerousness of nature directly. Meanwhile, nature in the consumption of wild fish and in industrial fish-farming is a product of the human spirit and an abstract concept that does not include concrete attributes. Wild fish is not in itself contrary to cultured fish. It is socially constructed and reflects a view of nature.

show abstract

Reconfiguring Nature and Culture: Intersections of Medical Anthropology and Technoscience Studies

Cited by 40 publications

References 30 publications

Biomedical Techniques in Context: On the Appropriation of Biomedical Procedures and Artifacts

Biomedical Techniques in Context: On the Appropriation of Biomedical Procedures and Artifacts

Technology and humane nursing care: (ir)reconcilable or invented difference?

The Ambiguity of Hygiene and Taste-Focusing on the Fish-Farming Industry in Vietnam

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About