Dissertation Research: "Workin It:" An Ethnography of Transgender Body-Making Technologies in the San Francisco Bay Area

论文研究：“Workin It：旧金山湾区跨性别塑身技术的民族志”

• 批准号: 0551881
• 负责人: Lawrence Cohen
• 金额: $ 0.8万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-02-01 至 2007-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0551881&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Workin; Ethnography; Transgender

This Science and Society Social Studies of Science, Engineering, and Technology Dissertation Improvement Grant will help fund ethnographic data collection in support of a study of the practices, relationships, and ethics that structure biomedical transformations of the body among a largely immigrant population of transgender women in San Francisco. As defined here, transgender woman refers to a person who wasassigned the identity of male at birth but who self-identifies as a woman, through a third gender category, or outside the traditional binary sex/gender system of male/man and female/woman. It is common for transgender women to use hormonal therapy, silicone implants, as well as cosmetic and gender corrective surgeries in order to cultivate desired forms of the body. In so doing, they enter into a variety of relationships not only with physicians, psychologists, and social workers but non-human agents as well, such as pharmaceutical products and medical technologies. NSF dissertation improvement funds will be used to support a multi-sited ethnography based in the San Francisco Bay Area with transgender women, their medical and healthcare providers, and other community leaders and policy-makers who combined form the network of relationships that make transgender body-making practices possible today. Fieldsites, where participant-observation activities, interviews, and document collection will be conducted, include two medical clinics, a community resource center, social spaces where transgender women gather, as well as four national medical and health conferences where topics related to transgender women and their healthcare providers are emphasized. Organizing this inquiry are three central aims: (1)The biomedical practices of everyday life: To study ethnographically the everyday biomedical practices and experiences of transgender women; the logics that guide these practices; and the meanings associated with biomedical cultivation of transgender bodies. (2) The biosociality of transgender embodiment: To study ethnographically the relationships between transgender women, their physicians and healthcare providers, political leaders, and other stake holders; the forms that these relationships assume; the norms that organize their structure; the values that guide the members' relationships with one another; and the ethical dilemmas and points of contestation that arise within these relationships. (3) Techniques for other biocreative enterprises:To explore how the practices, relations, and ethics of transgender women and their healthcare providers provide knowledge and skills that are necessary for living, thinking, and acting in a world where the biomedical remaking of human life has become a dominant social field of knowledge, practice, and politics. Coordinating research activities with the three central aims will enable this project to empirically investigate how transgender body-making technologies are characterized in terms of everyday practices, social networks, as well as what these practices and relations may say more generally about the stakes associated with the biomedical remaking of human life. The project will contribute to STS, anthropology and gender studies, one of the only ethnographically based investigations of the actors, practices, relations, and ethics associated with the biomedical transformation of the gendered body. This project will also develop a tool-kit of empirically based theoretical concepts that can advance further inquiry into other areas of social life where the biomedical remaking of body becomes a central practice of human life. In addition this study will advance understandings of the role of science, medicine, and technology in everyday life by investigating how a variety of differentiated positioned actors confront the possibilities and ethical dilemmas associated with body altering biomedical technologies.

这科学与社会科学，工程和技术论文改进补助金的社会研究将有助于资助人种学数据收集，以支持的做法，关系和伦理结构的身体生物医学转换之间的主要移民人口的变性妇女在旧金山弗朗西斯科的研究。根据这里的定义，跨性别女性是指出生时被赋予男性身份，但通过第三性别类别或在传统的男性/男性和女性/女性二元性别系统之外自我认同为女性的人。变性妇女通常使用激素疗法，硅胶植入物以及美容和性别矫正手术，以培养所需的身体形式。在这样做的过程中，他们不仅与医生、心理学家和社会工作者建立了各种关系，而且还与非人类的代理人建立了各种关系，如药品和医疗技术。NSF的论文改进资金将用于支持一个多站点的人种学在旧金山弗朗西斯科湾区与跨性别妇女，他们的医疗和保健提供者，以及其他社区领导人和决策者谁结合形成的关系网络，使跨性别的身体使今天的做法成为可能。现场，参与者观察活动，访谈和文件收集将进行，包括两个医疗诊所，社区资源中心，社会空间，跨性别妇女聚集，以及四个国家的医疗和健康会议，其中有关跨性别妇女及其医疗保健提供者的主题被强调。组织这项调查有三个中心目标：（1）日常生活的生物医学实践：研究跨性别妇女的日常生物医学实践和经验;指导这些实践的逻辑;以及与跨性别机构的生物医学培养相关的意义。(2)跨性别体现的生物社会性：研究跨性别妇女，他们的医生和医疗保健提供者，政治领导人和其他利益相关者之间的关系;这些关系假设的形式;组织其结构的规范;指导成员相互关系的价值观;以及这些关系中出现的伦理困境和挑战点。(3)其他生物创造企业的技术：探索跨性别女性及其医疗保健提供者的实践，关系和道德如何提供生活，思考和行动所必需的知识和技能，在这个世界上，人类生命的生物医学改造已成为知识，实践和政治的主导社会领域。协调研究活动与三个中心目标将使本项目能够实证调查如何变性身体制造技术的特点，在日常实践中，社交网络，以及这些做法和关系可能会说更普遍的利害关系与生物医学改造人类生活。 该项目将促进STS、人类学和性别研究，这是对与性别化身体的生物医学转变有关的行为者、做法、关系和伦理进行的唯一基于人种学的调查之一。该项目还将开发一个基于经验的理论概念工具包，可以进一步探索社会生活的其他领域，在这些领域，身体的生物医学改造成为人类生活的中心实践。此外，本研究将通过调查各种不同定位的行为者如何面对与改变身体的生物医学技术相关的可能性和伦理困境，来促进对科学，医学和技术在日常生活中的作用的理解。