Unit information: Geographies of Health, Science and Technology in 2019/20

Unit name	Geographies of Health, Science and Technology
Unit code	GEOGM0040
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	. Fannin
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None.
Co-requisites	None.
School/department	School of Geographical Sciences
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Description including Unit Aims

This unit introduces geographical work on science and technology studies, with a specific emphasis on the relevance of this work to the study of health and medicine. It will provide an introduction to the field of STS and in particular how feminist, postcolonial, actor-network, new materialism and other theoretical currents shape social science and humanities approaches to scientific knowledge, the biopolitics of health and medicine, the role of experimentation in scientific practice, and the social and ethical questions raised by technological innovation. Readings span include scholarship in queer, postcolonial and feminist theory, biology and technoscience criticism, and ethnographic inquiry.

This unit aims:

• To introduce geographical work on science and technology and the relevance of this work for understanding recent conceptual and empirical debates over matter, the body, and agency.
• To analyse the role and significance of the life sciences to modern and contemporary politics
• To demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of engagement with health, science and technology
• To enable students to engage critically with a wide range of theoretically and empirically-focused material

Intended Learning Outcomes

At the completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Identify key concepts and theories of science and technology studies in geographical scholarship,
2. Analyse differences internal to social science and humanities approaches to science and technology
3. Situate debates across interdisciplinary contexts appreciating shared conceptual genealogies and research applications
4. Identify the relevance of key concepts and categories from the unit for their individual research agendas

Teaching Information

Ten 2-hour seminars

Assessment Information

Formative:

Each student will present in one seminar on that seminar’s assigned readings for about fifteen minutes in length. Each presentation will summarise central themes in the readings for that week and pose questions for discussion. A copy of the presentation will be distributed to the class at the beginning of the two-hour seminar, and feedback will be given to the students within one week of their presentation. (ILOs 1, 2, and 3).

Summative:

One 4,500-word essay (100% of the unit mark) examining how the concepts and methods of science and technology studies can be critically applied to the student’s selected research topic. (ILOs 2, 3, and 4)

Reading and References

Essential

Foucault, Michel. (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics (Palgrave-Macmillan)

Haraway, Donna (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene Duke UP

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Murphy, Michelle. (2017) The Economization of Life Duke UP

Recommended

Cooper, Melinda. (2008) Life as Surplus (Durham: Duke University Press)

Franklin, Sarah (2013) Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship Duke UP

Hayden, Cory (2003) When Nature Goes Public: the making and unmaking of bioprospecting in Mexico Princeton: Princeton University Press

Rajan, Kaushik Sunder (2006) Biocapital: the Constitution of Postgenomic Life Durham: Duke University Press

Further reading

Jasanoff, Sheila. (2005) Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

Office of Technology Assessment (1989) Patenting Life, http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/8924.pdf

Suchman, Lucy (2007) Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action Cambridge UP

Verran, Helen. (2001) Science and an African Logic Chicago UP

There is no core text book for this unit. Instead students will be required to read a selection of journal articles, book chapters and books as specified on the reading list circulated at the start of the course.