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The Social Life of Standards

The Social Life of Standards

Ethnographic Methods for Local Engagement

Edited by Janice E. Graham, Christina Holmes, Fiona McDonald and Regna Darnell

Published by: University of British Columbia Press

Imprint: UBC Press

256 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 mm, 2 b&w illus, 2 maps, 5 charts

Paperback
9780774865227
Published: January 2022

£26.99

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Hardcover
9780774865210
Published: April 2021

£72.00

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Description
Contents
Authors

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.

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

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