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

本论文研究由科学、技术与社会计划和美国国家科学基金会生物与社会倡议下的生物理事会支持，协调三个案例研究来研究越来越多的人是如何利用生物实践的。这些案例特别检查了与生物材料的感官接触，以批判性地干预当代实验生物科学的知识和权力的表达。在适当地算作“生物学”的学科边缘，合成生物学家、分子美食家和编织珊瑚礁的妇女都在运用各种各样的工艺实践，这里称之为“建设性生物学”，作为批评生物科学的经济和治理的策略。合成生物学家的目标是从零开始制造标准化的生物系统，并向生物工程师和非专业人士免费提供合成这些生物的部件。同样，分子烹饪学致力于生物物质的标准化，但作为一种将传统的手工烹饪实践转化为科学努力的手段。双曲钩针在钩针编织的珊瑚礁上进行了“实际进化的实验”，数千名妇女创造了这个珊瑚礁，以引起人们对气候变化对珊瑚礁影响的关注。通过并置这三个实地地点，该项目旨在了解不同的敏感性如何被构建到制造中，并探索这些实践是否代表了生物科学中正在发生的更大变化。将合成生物学、分子烹饪学和双曲钩针编织在一起，结合科学研究的三个基本主题：1)科学归属、信用和财产，2)隐性知识，以及3)标准化和工艺，本项目的智力贡献将展示工艺如何超越服务于其他形式的生物知识，从而调解对生命系统的具体感官欣赏。这一主张将通过人种学研究来推进，这些研究考察了重构生命物质的建设性生物学，从而重塑了“生命本身”的定义。

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."