Macota / Maghrawa (Tunisie)

Le site archéologique Macota-Maghrawa se trouve à 8 km à vol d’oiseau au nord-ouest de Maktar*, dans une région montagneuse correspondant aux contreforts septentrionaux de la hamada des Ouled Ayar, fortement disséqués par l’érosion (Atlas Archéologique de la Tunisie, II, feuille de Maktar, 125, Maghraoua). Le site naturel est un éperon légèrement incliné vers le nord et merveilleusement exposé, encadré par deux ravins relativement encaissés. La localité moderne de Maghrawa, aujourd’hui simple..

Musulames

L’importante confédération tribale des Musulames, sur laquelle on dispose d’une documentation assez abondante, occupait à l’origine un vaste territoire correspondant au bassin du Muthul (actuel oued Mellègue), dont ils semblent avoir pris le nom (à moins que cela ne soit l’inverse). On les imaginait naguère comme des nomades poussant leurs troupeaux dans la steppe herbeuse, progressivement repoussés ou « cantonnés » par Rome dans un territoire de plus en plus réduit. Les progrès récents des c..

Setting the agenda for social science research on the human microbiome

The human microbiome is an important emergent area of cross, multi and transdisciplinary study. The complexity of this topic leads to conflicting narratives and regulatory challenges. It raises questions about the benefits of its commercialisation and drives debates about alternative models for engaging with its publics, patients and other potential beneficiaries. The social sciences and the humanities have begun to explore the microbiome as an object of empirical study and as an opportunity for theoretical innovation. They can play an important role in facilitating the development of research that is socially relevant, that incorporates cultural norms and expectations around microbes and that investigates how social and biological lives intersect. This is a propitious moment to establish lines of collaboration in the study of the microbiome that incorporate the concerns and capabilities of the social sciences and the humanities together with those of the natural sciences and relevant stakeholders outside academia. This paper presents an agenda for the engagement of the social sciences with microbiome research and its implications for public policy and social change. Our methods were informed by existing multidisciplinary science-policy agenda-setting exercises. We recruited 36 academics and stakeholders and asked them to produce a list of important questions about the microbiome that were in need of further social science research. We refined this initial list into an agenda of 32 questions and organised them into eight themes that both complement and extend existing research trajectories. This agenda was further developed through a structured workshop where 21 of our participants refined the agenda and reflected on the challenges and the limitations of the exercise itself. The agenda identifies the need for research that addresses the implications of the human microbiome for human health, public health, public and private sector research and notions of self and identity. It also suggests new lines of research sensitive to the complexity and heterogeneity of human–microbiome relations, and how these intersect with questions of environmental governance, social and spatial inequality and public engagement with science

DNA Methods to Identify Missing Persons

Human identification by DNA analysis in missing person cases typically involves comparison of two categories of sample: a reference sample, which could be obtained from intimate items of the person in question or from family members, and the questioned sample from the unknown person-usually derived from the bones, teeth, or soft tissues of human remains. Exceptions include the analysis of archived tissues, such as those held by hospital pathology departments, and the analysis of samples relating to missing, but living persons. DNA is extracted from the questioned and reference samples and well-characterized regions of the genetic code are amplified from each source using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), which generates sufficient copies of the target region for visualization and comparison of the genetic sequences obtained from each sample. If the DNA sequences of the questioned and reference samples differ, this is normally sufficient for the questioned DNA to be excluded as having come from the same source. If the sequences are identical, statistical analysis is necessary to determine the probability that the match is a consequence of the questioned sequence coming from the same individual who provided the reference sample or from a randomly occurring individual in the general population. Match probabilities that are currently achievable are frequently greater than 1 in 1 billion, allowing identity to be assigned with considerable confidence in many cases

Sporen & Resonanties. De klassieken van de Nederlandstalige Genderstudies

Item does not contain fulltext270 p

Measurement as an ontological scalpel

International audienc

The politics of suspects’ geo-genetic origin in France: The conditions, expression, and effects of problematisation

International audienceRecently, genetics has given rise to changes in how people’s origin is conceived. Forensics has started using some of these changes in the shape of new DNA-based tests aimed at determining suspects’ geographic origin. This article analyses how recent practices in this field have been ‘problematised’ in France, in Foucault’s sense of the term, and gives substantial weight to the country’s historical and republican legacy. First, the launch of these genetic tests is examined, looking at the work of actors who helped create the preconditions for this problematisation but at the same time tried to deconstruct it. The paper goes on to focus on how this problematisation is expressed, questioning the arguments used particularly by its opponents who ground their stance in history, law, and science, while also invoking ethical and political concerns regarding data use. Finally, current state regulations on the matter are outlined, showing how ‘points of problematisation’ have been construed in terms of prohibition. The article concludes by underlining the internal tensions (the ‘knot’) of the problematisation process, showing how it highlights changes in contemporary notions of origin and the types of subjects it produces. More generally, the implications of this study for social science research on origin and on the life sciences are also discussed