Dissertation Research: Disciplinary Emergence in the Environmental Health Sciences, 1940-2000

Investigator(s):

Adele Clarke (PI)

Sponsor:

University of California-San Francisco, CA 94103 4154762977

Start Date/Expiration Date

2002-01-01 to 2002-12-31 (amended 2002-01-11)

Awarded Amount to Date:

$7,720

Abstract: This dissertation project is a historical sociological analysis of the emergence of genetic/genomic practices in epidemiology and toxicology, the environmental health sciences. Drawing on historical and qualitative research methodologies, this project addresses three broad and interrelated areas of inquiry. First, it analyzes the scientific,clinical, social, political, and economic concerns that have shaped the introduction, application, and development of genetic/genomic technologies in the environmental health sciences. This analysis focuses especially on the emergence of molecular epidemiology and toxicogenomics, examining the processes through which molecular biomarkers and DNA microarrays have been constructed as the "right tools for the job" (Clarke and Fujimura 1992) of environmental health research. Second, this research examines the consequences of molecular epidemiology and toxicogenomics for the practice and organization of environmental health risk assessment. It investigates the co-construction of technologies and practice, examining both the effects of molecular biomarkers and DNA microarrays on environmental health risk assessment and the ways in which the demands of regulatory science (Jasanoff 1995) have shaped the development and meanings of these technologies. Finally, this project explores the social, cultural, and political implications of the use(s) of genetic/genomic technologies in the environmental health sciences. It follows such technologies, and the knowledge they produce, outside of the laboratories and clinics where they have been developed, in order to describe how they are reinterpreted, reconfigured, renegotiated, reified, and/or resisted by actors in multiple social locations and with what varied consequences. NSF funds will support the collection of historical and ethnographic data on genetic/genomic technologies and research methods in the environmental health sciences and in environmental health risk assessment. One of the important research sites is National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle, NC. Funds will in part support interview transcriptions.

NSF Org:

SES - Division of Social and Economic Sciences

Award Number:

0135381

Award Instrument:

Standard Grant

Program Manager:

John P. Perhonis
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences

NSF Program(s):

Hist & Philosophy of SET

Field Application(s):

Health, Human Subjects

Program Reference Code(s):

COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM, 9179

Program Element Code(s):

1353