 | Anna Harris Postdoctoral Researcher - Maastricht University |
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02.04.2015-30.04.2015
Genetics goes online: New genetics and new media
The three applicants worked closely together for two years on a project jointly funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Anna Harris spent one year in Maastricht with Sally Wyatt, and then one year in Exeter with Susan Kelly. The project was very productive, resulting in four published journal articles, one article under review, one book review essay, and numerous conference presentations and lectures. Together we also organised a very successful international two-day workshop about genetic testing, held in Maastricht. We have always worked very well together, and are confident that a one-month intensive period of work at the Brocher Foundation will give us the final push we need to turn our existing empirical material and publications into a coherent and compelling monograph about DTC GT. The ‘timeline’ section outlines how we will turn our existing material into a final book manuscript. Not only would a Residency at the Brocher Foundation be conducive to meeting these aims, as a wonderful setting for productive collaboration, but also one month in Switzerland would allow us to discuss our work with local researchers in this field. As well as fellow researchers at the Brocher Foundation, other individuals and groups we could meet include David Shaw and others looking at the intersections of health and social media at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics, at the University of Basel; Martin Lengwiler who focuses on participatory practices in science at the same university; as well as science studies colleagues at ETH Zurich and the University of Lausanne. It would also be valuable to connect with the WHO Genomics Resource Centre in Geneva, and their work on the ethics of genetic testing.
My research concerns modes of tinkering and tailoring in medicine, from an anthropological perspective. More specifically, I am interested in the material and cultural life of medical technologies, skills, workers and institutions, which I largely study using techniques of ethnography. I work across the academic fields of medical anthropology, the sociology of health and illness, and science and technology studies. I am inspired by ethnographically orientated work outside of the academy in film, art, craft and literature. I also draw from my previous clinical work as a doctor. My research includes work on: how listening to sound is learnt and used in medicine; genetic testing on the internet and associated themes of participation, controversy and trust; narratives in medicine; migration of doctors and translation of medical practice between hospital settings; sensory methodologies; the relationship between art and medicine; and medical museums. I also regularly blog about a fascinating technology vastly invisible in medical practice: pneumatic tubes (see links).
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