Doctoral Dissertation Research: Crafting Life: A Sensory Ethnography of Constructive Biologies

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This dissertation research, supported by the Science, Technology & Society Program and the Biology directorate at NSF under the Biology & Society initiative, coordinates three case studies to examine how a growing number of people utilize biological practice. The cases examine sensory engagements with biological materials in particular, to critically intervene into articulations of knowledge and power governing contemporary experimental biosciences. At the disciplinary margins of what properly counts as "biology," synthetic biologists, molecular gastronomists, and women crocheting coral reefs are all deploying diverse craft practices, here termed "constructive biologies," as tactics with which to critique the economy and governance of the biosciences. Synthetic biologists aim to fabricate standardized biological systems from scratch, and to make freely available the parts from which these organisms are synthesized to both bioengineers and non-professionals alike. So too, molecular gastronomy is engaged in the standardization of biological substance, but as a means of taking the traditionally artisanal practice of cooking and transforming it into a scientific endeavor. Hyperbolic crochet undertakes "an experiment in practical evolution" in the crocheted coral reef, which thousands of women create to draw attention to the effects of climate change on coral reefs. By juxtaposing these three field sites, this project aims to understand how disparate sensibilities become built into fabrications, and to explore whether such practices represent larger changes afoot in the biosciences. Weaving together the warp of synthetic biology, molecular gastronomy, and hyperbolic crochet with the weft of three topics fundamental to science studies: 1) scientific attribution, credit, and property, 2) tacit knowledge, and 3) standardization and artisanship, the intellectual contribution of this project will be demonstration of how craft goes beyond service to other forms of biological knowledge toward mediating an embodied, sensory appreciation of living systems. This claim will be advanced by ethnographic research examining constructive biologies that are refiguring living substance, and thus remaking the definition of "life itself."