Dissertation Research: Practicing the Biosciences in Vietnam: Local Culture, Market Forces, Global Science

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This dissertation research project is focusing its empirical attention to a geographical and cultural area underresearched in science and technology studies. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to a theoretical elaboration of globality/locality in science and speaks to theoretical issues outside science studies in the analyses of transition societies and the globilization of knowledge and culture. More specifically, it is an interpretive study of the biosciences in Vietnam, examining local culture, organizational environment, and global context. It addresses theoretical issues in the social studies of scientific practice and culture, incorporating analysis of market transition in socialist countries, and globilization and postcolonial theory. The specific research questions are: 1) How do Vietnamese scientists interpret and judge the meaning of good science and the value of scientific knowledge? 2) How do funding requirements and mechanisms affect the organization of scientific research institutes and individual scientific careers? 3) In what ways do Vietnamese scientists orient their practice to the idea of `universal` science, and how do specific connections with foreign scientific communities affect their research? The project design has three components: ethnographic observation at three bioscience research institutes; extensive, two-stage, tape-recorded oral histories with scientists; and collection and analysis of supplementary data form archives, organizations, policy documents, and interviews.