Archives, promises, values: forensic infrastructures in times of austerity

This article analyses the role of infrastructures in the ‘bioinformational turn’ in forensic science and examines processes through which evidence is constituted, validated, or challenged in and through domains of expertise that engage different techniques, data, objects and knowledges through infrastructural arrangements. While the digitisation of the infrastructures that underpin forensic service delivery promised connectivity, prosperity and wellbeing, in reality it also brought forward new levels of risk and vulnerability, generating new tensions and frictions in the body politic. As genetic science reaches post-archival horizons through new genetic sequencing technologies, forensic science in postarchival times raises questions concerning the differential impact of the fragmentation of analytical and archival infrastructures and increasingly asynchronous bureaucracies whose role is displaced by the relative autonomy of datasets and computational architectures that elude governance oversight and citizens’ scrutiny

Arquivos, promessas, valores: Infraestruturas forenses em tempos de austeridade

Este artigo analisa o papel das infraestruturas na "virada bio informacional" na ciência forense e examina processos através dos quais as evidências são constituídas, validadas ou desafiadas em e através de domínios de especialização que envolvem diferentes técnicas, dados, objetos e conhecimentos através de arranjos infraestruturais. Enquanto a digitalização das infraestruturas que sustenta a prestação de serviços forenses prometia conectividade, prosperidade e bem-estar, na realidade ela também trazia novos níveis de risco e vulnerabilidade, gerando novas tensões e atritos no corpo político. À medida que a ciência genética atinge horizontes pós-arquivamento através de novas tecnologias de sequenciamento genético, a ciência forense em tempos de pós-arquivo levanta questões quanto ao impacto diferencial da fragmentação das infraestruturas analíticas e arquivísticas e das burocracias cada vez mais assincrônicas cujo papel é deslocado pela relativa autonomia dos conjuntos de dados e arquiteturas computacionais que escapam à governança, à supervisão e ao escrutínio dos cidadãos

Bioinformation worlds and futures

This book sets out to define and consolidate the field of bioinformation studies in its transnational and global dimensions, drawing on debates in science and technology studies, anthropology and sociology. It provides situated analyses of bioinformation journeys across domains and spheres of interpretation. As unprecedented amounts of data relating to biological processes and lives are collected, aggregated, traded and exchanged, infrastructural systems and machine learners produce real consequences as they turn indeterminate data into actionable decisions for states, companies, scientific researchers and consumers. Bioinformation accrues multiple values as it transverses multiple registers and domains, and as it is transformed from bodies to becoming a subject of analysis tied to particular social relations, promises, desires and futures. The volume harnesses the anthropological sensibility for situated, fine-grained, ethnographically grounded analysis to develop an interdisciplinary dialogue on the conceptual, political, social and ethical dimensions posed by bioinformation

Bioinformation worlds and futures: Introduction

This book sets out to define and consolidate the field of bioinformation studies in its transnational and global dimensions, drawing on debates in science and technology studies, anthropology and sociology. It provides situated analyses of bioinformation journeys across domains and spheres of interpretation. As unprecedented amounts of data relating to biological processes and lives are collected, aggregated, traded and exchanged, infrastructural systems and machine learners produce real consequences as they turn indeterminate data into actionable decisions for states, companies, scientific researchers and consumers. Bioinformation accrues multiple values as it transverses multiple registers and domains, and as it is transformed from bodies to becoming a subject of analysis tied to particular social relations, promises, desires and futures. The volume harnesses the anthropological sensibility for situated, fine-grained, ethnographically grounded analysis to develop an interdisciplinary dialogue on the conceptual, political, social and ethical dimensions posed by bioinformation

Queering knowledge: an introduction

Book synopsis: This volume draws on the significance of the work of Marilyn Strathern in respect of its potential to queer anthropological analysis and to foster the reimagining of the object of anthropology. The authors examine the ways in which Strathern’s varied analytics facilitate the construction of alternative forms of anthropological thinking, and greater understanding of how knowledge practices of queer objects, subjects and relations operate and take effect. Queering Knowledge offers an innovative collection of writing, bringing about queer and anthropological syntheses through Strathern’s oeuvre. It will be relevant to scholars from anthropology as well as a number of other disciplines, including gender, sexuality and queer studies