Standards. We apply them, uphold them, or fail to meet them. But how do they get made? Through twelve ethnographic case studies, The Social Life of Standards reveals how standards political and technical tools for organizing society are developed, applied, subverted, contested, and reassembled by local communities interacting with norms often created by others. Contributors explore standards at work across different countries and contexts, such as Ebola biomedical safety precautions in Senegal, Colombian farmers contesting politicized seed regulations, and the application of Indigenous standards to Canadian environmental assessments. They emphasize the uncomfortable fit between the inconsistent implementation of standards in the real world and the non-negotiable criteria presupposed by external forces.
The Social Life of Standards provides support for a reflexive process that involves local engagement. Ultimately, the goal should be to reach a balance between evidence-based science and the social contexts that can inform more useful and appropriate standards.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Introduction |
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1 Making Standards in Science: The Imperfect Case of the European Bank for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (EBiSC) |
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25 | (21) |
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2 "A Lab of One's Own": Entangled Measures and the Challenges of Redefining Standard-Lab Practice in Academic Context |
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46 | (17) |
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3 When Are Standards Necessary in the Lab? Standards as Gateway or Barrier to Innovation in Proteomics |
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63 | (16) |
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Part 2 Subverting Standards |
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4 Doing Science in an Emergency: Challenging Clinical Trial Standards and Producing Care |
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79 | (18) |
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5 The Social Life of Emergency Standards: Twenty-One Days of Ebola Biosafety Precautions for Contact Cases in Senegal |
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97 | (17) |
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6 Check Your Denominator: Geographic Mapping, Activism, and the Standardization of Sexual Risk |
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114 | (27) |
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Part 3 Contesting Standards |
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7 Contesting Seed Standards: The Red de Semillas Libres in Colombia |
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141 | (18) |
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8 Sick Cows and Politicized Standards: The Construction of Farmer Resistance to Testing for Bovine Tuberculosis |
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159 | (20) |
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Part 4 Reassembling Standards |
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9 Unsettling Standards: Indigenous Peoples and Child Welfare |
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179 | (20) |
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10 When the Bough Breaks: Balancing Heritage, Forestry, and Unsustainable Standards in Algonquin Provincial Park |
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199 | (20) |
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11 Standing Our Ground: Putting Indigenous Standards to Work in Environmental Assessment |
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219 | (18) |
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12 Negotiating Good Development: Standards for Consultation |
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237 | (17) |
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| Conclusion |
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254 | (11) |
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| Contributors |
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265 | (6) |
| Index |
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271 | |
Janice Graham is University Research Professor, a professor in medicine and social anthropology, and former Canada Research Chair in Bioethics in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University. Christina Holmes is an assistant professor in the interdisciplinary Health program at St. Francis Xavier University. Fiona McDonald is Co-director of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research, an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology, and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie University. Regna Darnell is a distinguished university professor emerita and adjunct research professor of anthropology at Western University.
Contributors: Xavier Anglaret, Craig Candler, Alice Desclaux, Liz Fitting, Laura Gutiérrez Escobar, Shawn Harmon, Dean Jacobs, Jane Jenkins, Mavis Jones, Udo Krautwurst, Frédéric Le Marcis, Robert Lorway, Denis Malvy, Gerald P. McKinley, L. Jane McMillan, Ian Puppe, Daouda Sissoko, and Tamara Wattnem
