The Social Life of Standards

Ethnographic Methods for Local Engagement

Edited by Janice E. Graham, Christina Holmes, Fiona McDonald, and Regna Darnell
Categories: Social Sciences, Anthropology, Sociology, Indigenous Studies
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774865210, 256 pages, April 2021
Paperback : 9780774865227, 256 pages, January 2022
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774865234, 256 pages, April 2021
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774865241, 256 pages, April 2021
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Table of contents

Introduction: The Social Life of Standards: Anthropological Ecologies / Janice E. Graham, Christina Holmes, Fiona McDonald, and Regna Darnell

Part 1: Making Standards

1 Making Standards in Science: The Imperfect Case of the European Bank for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (EBiSC) / Shawn H.E. Harmon

2 “A Lab of One’s Own”: Entangled Measures and the Challenges of Redefining Standard-Lab Practice in Academic Context / Udo Krautwurst

3 When Are Standards Necessary in the Lab? Standards as Gateway or Barrier to Innovation in Proteomics / Christina Holmes, Fiona McDonald, and Mavis Jones

Part 2: Subverting Standards

4 Doing Science in an Emergency: Challenging Clinical Trial Standards and Producing Care / Frédéric Le Marcis, Daouda Sissoko, Xavier Anglaret, and Denis Malvy

5 The Social Life of Emergency Standards: Twenty-One Days of Ebola Biosafety Precautions for Contact Cases in Senegal / Alice Desclaux

6 Check Your Denominator: Geographic Mapping, Activism, and the Standardization of Sexual Risk / Robert Lorway

Part 3: Contesting Standards

7 Contesting Seed Standards: The Red De Semillas Libres in Colombia / Elizabeth Fitting, Laura Gutiérrez Escobar, and Tamara Wattnem

8 Sick Cows and Politicized Standards: The Construction of Farmer Resistance to Testing for Bovine Tuberculosis / Jane Jenkins

Part 4: Reassembling Standards

9 Unsettling Standards: Indigenous Peoples and Child Welfare / L. Jane McMillan

10 When the Bough Breaks: Balancing Heritage, Forestry, and Unsustainable Standards in Algonquin Provincial Park / Ian Puppe

11 Standing Our Ground: Putting Indigenous Standards to Work in Environmental Assessment / Craig Candler

12 Negotiating Good Development: Standards for Consultation / Dean Jacobs, Regna Darnell, and Gerald P. McKinley

Conclusion: Articulating Better Standards: A Lifecycle Approach to Progressive Engagement / Janice Graham

Index

Description

Standards. We apply them, uphold them, or fail to meet them. But how do they get made? The Social Life of Standards reveals how these political and technical tools for organizing society are developed, subverted, contested, and reassembled by local communities interacting with standards created by others. Using ethnographic approaches, contributors investigate biomedical, agricultural, and other contexts that reveal the mismatch between the inconsistent implementation of standards in the real world and the non-negotiable criteria presupposed by external forces. These cases support a reflexive process that involves local engagement at every stage in the production and application of standards.