ASA Decennial Conference
2003
Anthropology & Science
Call For Papers
There is no society in the world today where people
do not have to confront the effects of scientific innovation. But
innovation fuels debate. The authority and expertise of science are not
accepted by everyone nor is science able to sustain the appearance of
neutrality in relation to political, commercial and military interests.
Faced with mistrust and hostility, scientists and their supporters are
inclined to exaggerate the potential benefits of their discoveries for
humanity at large, leading to equally magnified claims, on the part of
their detractors, about the possible damaging consequences of scientific
and technological innovations harnessed to major corporate interests it
is claimed applications of science and technology have exacerbated
pre-existing divisions between rich and poor and created new
inequalities.
Anthropology has a vital role to play in contributing to a more measured
debate on these issues. Current anthropological research is helping us to
understand the extent and limits of science's impacts on social life in
different regions of the world. It reveals how people receive, and make
sense of, scientific knowledge, and how this knowledge is treated in
relation to 'local' or 'indigenous' understandings. It is also leading to
fresh, comparative insights into the organisation and culture of
scientific communities themselves, and into the ways such communities are
situated in relation to institutionalised structures of power and
finance. Investigation of the links between science and capitalism have
shown how emergent technologies can aggravate global injustice, affect
patterns of social organisation, and transform the ways rights over
persons and property are codified and exercised.
But many questions remain.
Is there such a thing as 'the western scientific imagination'? If so, can
science ever be dissociated from the hegemony of western-derived
paradigms and practices?
Can there be a non-western science, or is any critique of western
modernity necessarily a critique, even a rejection, of science as well?
These are questions that can and should be pursued in both western and
non-western contexts.
A further set of questions surrounds the status of anthropology itself.
There has been much debate about whether anthropology is, or can possibly
be, a science. The issue now concerns the authority of anthropological
knowledge in the public domain.
Is the task of anthropology to show how the prevailing divisions between
the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities might be
transcended? And with its emphasis on the social embeddedness of
scientific practice, how is anthropology affected by the contemporary
renegotiation of the boundary between science and society?
These are questions not only for social and cultural anthropologists but
also for biological anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and
historians of science. The conference will cover the following broad
sub-themes:
1. Sciences and technologies of the body, the person and the social.
2. The scientific imagination and the imagination of science.
3. Is science western? Can there be a non-western science?
4. How do the links between science and global capitalism affect
science's impact on local and regional populations?
5. Beyond 'science' and 'indigenous knowledge'.
6. Cultures of science, scientific communities and the
institutionalisation of knowledge production.
7. How are the knowledges and practices of science and technology
socially embedded, and what are the relations between them?
8. Anthropology: art, science or social science?
9. Beyond 'biology' and 'culture'.
Scholars wishing to organise panels or present papers on these issues are
invited to contact:
Nasira Asghar
Project and Conference Administrator
Department of Social Anthropology
Roscoe Building Brunswick Street
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
Tel: 0161 275 3997
Fax: 0161 275 3970
E-mail:
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Christopher Bear
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Department of Geography and Environment
University of Aberdeen
Elphinstone Road
Aberdeen
AB24 3UF
Telephone
(office): +44-(0)1224-273491
Fax: +44-(0)1224-272331
URL:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/geography/cbear.hti