Anthropologie des objets-frontières humains : Explorer de nouveaux sites pour la négociation de l’identité

L’anthropologie est définie comme l’étude de l’être humain (anthrôpos) ; mais où peut-on localiser le sujet de cette discipline ? Dans cet article, je propose d’explorer un type particulier d’entités que j’appelle les objets-frontières humains. Ces entités peuvent simultanément appartenir ou non au corps humain, relever de la personne et de la chose, du soi et du non-soi. La biomédecine actuelle repose en grande partie sur l’utilisation de tels objets, tant pour la recherche que pour le traitement. Cet article vise à montrer qu’ils constituent de nouveaux sites productifs pour l’analyse de thèmes classiques comme l’identité, la catégorisation et la liminalité. À partir d’exemples concrets, il s’agit de comprendre comment de tels espaces facilitent l’étude des négociations actuelles de l’identité dans la fabrique d’une nouvelle vie (traitement contre l’infertilité), la reconstruction du corps (technologie liée à la transplantation) et même la mort (incinération).Anthropology is known as the study of anthrôpos, the human being. But where should one locate this study ? In this paper I suggest exploring a particular type of entity that I call human boundary object : an object which is deemed both part of and not-part of the body ; both person and thing ; both self and not-self. Current biomedicine to a large extent depends upon the use of such objects for both research and treatment, and I suggest that they constitute productive sites for the study of classical themes such as personhood, categorization and liminality. I give examples of how such sites can facilitate examination of current negotiations of personhood in the making of new life (e.g. infertility treatment), in the reshaping of bodies (e.g. transplant technology), and upon death (e.g. cremation).La antropología es definida como el estudio del ser humano (anthrôpos), pero ¿dónde puede localizarse el sujeto de esta disciplina ? En este artículo propongo explorar un tipo particular de entidades que llamo los objetos-fronteras humanas. Estas entidades pueden, simultáneamente, pertenecer o no al cuerpo humano, depender de la persona y de la cosa, de sí mismo y no de sí mismo. La biomedicina actual se basa en gran parte en la utilización de tales objetos, tanto para la investigación como para el tratamiento. Este artículo busca demostrar que ellos constituyen nuevos sitios productivos para el análisis de temas clásicos como la identidad, la categorización y la liminalidad. Se trata de comprender, a partir de ejemplos concretos, cómo tales espacios facilitan el estudio de las negociaciones actuales de la identidad en la fábrica de una nueva vida (tratamiento contra la infertilidad), la reconstrucción del cuerpo (tecnología relacionada con los trasplantes) e inclusive en la muerte (incineración)

Blood, death, and data: Engaging medical science and technology studies

From the introduction: Over the course of relatively few years, science and technology studies (STS) has become recognized as an internationally significant discipline and is today well known also in Danish academia. The present paper serves to inaugurate a chair in medical science and technology studies. What is this? I think of the subfield of medical science and technology studies (mSTS) as the study of how social, political, and cultural practices shape medical research, technological innovation, and clinical routines and how these, in turn, affect society, politics, and culture. In other words, it is about exploring the co-production of science and society in a way that, in effect, dissolves clear distinctions between the social and the technological, between semantics and materiality, between culture and nature (Jasanoff, 1990; Jasanoff, 1995; Jasanoff, 2005). It is the study of medical research and clinical practice from a theoretically informed and analytically engaged perspective

Data promiscuity:How the public-private distinction shaped digital data infrastructures and notions of privacy

Abstract This essay discusses the performative effects of the public–private distinction on digital data infrastructures in healthcare. The words ‘public’ and ‘private’ hold many meanings. This analysis focuses on how they are used both in an informational sense (what is kept secret or strictly controlled versus what is out in the open or shared) and an institutional sense (issues of ownership and purpose such as being state-owned and governed for the common good or privately owned and aimed at generating profit). In the political construction of digital infrastructures, the two senses are deeply intertwined: changes in relation to ownership and purpose affect what is kept secret and what is shared. Furthermore, when policymakers search for ways to protect one aspect (privacy) they sometimes opt for tools from the other (by conceiving of data as private property). The informational interconnectedness facilitated by digital infrastructures produces a form of ‘data promiscuity’. Data promiscuity is a condition where data are indiscriminate in the choice of partners: what is seen as data on a thing for one purpose can always become seen as data on another aspect of that thing and be used for another purpose and by another user. Data are set free to pursue gain or pleasure, but this freedom involves certain dangers for the persons from whom they derive. Data promiscuity is the contemporary condition of possibility for health research. By unpacking the wholesale categories of public and private through which the contemporary situation came about, there is a better chance of rethinking the problems it involves, and for suggesting new solutions to ensure social sustainability. The argument is based on developments in one of the most fiercely digitalised and datafied countries in the world: Denmark

Chapter 7 Lost and Found

Both inside and outside the health services, patients and healthy citizens give rise to increasing amounts of health data. They are created, collected, curated, stored and used for multiple purposes in a process I characterise as intensified data sourcing. This data intensification changes how we deal with health issues. In this chapter I reflect on similarities and differences between data flows mediated by public and private institutions, using Denmark as my primary example. Denmark in interesting ways prescribes a form of solidarity that might be associated with We Medicine: people deliver data in the process of receiving, or in exchange for, publicly financed healthcare; and the data can be used for research for the common good. The solidarity of the model is currently being challenged in various ways, however, as authorities circumvent the voluntariness of participation and begin seeing health data as business opportunities. Simultaneously, a private market in health data is emerging mediated by privately owned platforms. The chapter compares the public and commercial forms of data sourcing to explore what is at stake for individuals and society in those processes

Organ donation and the ethics of muddling through

Organ donation offers opportunities for people in critical care units to help save the lives of other patients. It is not always easy, however, to handle the transition from treating a patient to preserving a potential donor, and organ donation consistently provokes ethical questions in critical care units. What do we expect ethics to deliver? In light of a recent ethics conference in Denmark, we suggest that by acknowledging that decisions made in the clinic rarely abide to rational decision trees with clear ethical priorities, we can better learn from each other's experiences. We suggest embracing an 'ethics of muddling through' to enhance relevant reflections and stimulate a productive dialogue among health professionals

The Anthropology of Potentiality in Biomedicine

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, potentiality serves as a central concept in the life sciences and in medical practices. This special issue of Current Anthropology explores how genes, cells, bodies, and populations as well as technologies, disciplines, and research areas become imbued with potential. We suggest that anthropologists of the life sciences and biomedicine should work reflexively with the concept of potentiality and the politics of its naming and framing. We lay out a set of propositions and emphasize the moral aspects of claims about potentiality as well as the productivity of the ambiguity involved when dealing with that which does not (yet and may never) exist. We suggest that potentiality is both an analytic—one that has appeared explicitly and tacitly in the history of anthropology—as well as an object of study in need of further attention. To understand contemporary meanings and practices associated with potentiality, we must integrate an awareness of our own social scientific assumptions about potentiality with critical scrutiny of how the word and concept operate in the lives of the people we study