Author Archives: Jose A. Cañada

Osallistu työryhmään ‘Science, Technology and Society’ Sosiologipäivillä 2018!

Westermarck-seuran vuosittaiset Sosiologipäivät ovat jälleen käsillä. Kuluvana vuonna Itä-Suomen Yliopisto järjestää konferenssin Joensuun kampuksella 15.-16.3.

Viime vuoden tapaan STS Helsinki organisoi päiville työryhmän, jonka tavoitteena on yhdistää tieteen ja teknologian tutkijoita niin Suomesta kuin ulkomailtakin.

Kaksipäiväinen työryhmä “science, technology and society” sisältää kiinnostavia esityksiä, jotka saavat varmasti aikaan hyvää keskustelua.

Aikataulu:

Torstai 15.3. klo 15.45-18.15 Natura N101

Jose Canada: More-than-human intersectionality: understanding categorization, indentification and boundary-making during pandemic processes
Salla Sariola & Elina Oinas: Living-with microbes in the era of antimicrobial resistance
Venla Oikkonen: Pandemic vaccination, vaccine harm and the politics of futurity
Mikko Hyyryläinen: Kulttuurin ja kognition sosiologia – mielen sosiologiaa vai kognitiivista sosiologiaa?
Johanna Hokka: Sociology, Science Policy Ideals on ’Excellence’ and the symbolic struggles over legitimate science – Finnish and Swedish Sociology as a case in point

Perjantai 16.3. klo 9.00-11.30 Natura N104

Vera Raivola: Making sense of a blood bank biobank
Annerose Böhrer: Metaphors in organ transplantation and the role of donor cards
Mikko Jauho: Structuring the Cardiovascular Health Arena – the Double Risk Object of Dietary Fat and Cholesterol
Riikka Homanen: Hetero- ja parinormitonta sukulaisuutta tekemässä? Itselliset naiset ja naisparit yksityisissä hedelmöityshoidoissa
Karolina Snell & Heta Tarkkala: Goldmining Nordic population(s) – data, health and policy

Työryhmän koordinaattorit ovat Heta Tarkkala, Itä Suomen Yliopisto/Helsingin Yliopisto, (heta.tarkkala@uef.fi), Karoliina Snell, Helsingin Yliopisto (karoliina.snell@helsinki.fi), ja Vera Raivola, Itä-Suomen Yliopisto/Helsingin Yliopisto (vera.raivola@student.uef.fi).

Koordinattorit vastaavat kaikkiin työryhmää koskeviin kysymyksiin.

Tervetuloa!

Do not miss our Workshop ‘Science, Technology and Society’ at the upcoming Sociology Days!

Time has arrived for Sosiologipäivät 2018, the annual conference of The Westermarck Society. This year, the conference is organized at the University of Eastern Finland, in the Joensuu campus, on the 15th and the 16th of March. As last year, members of the STS Helsinki network organize a workshop that has as an objective to bring together researchers across Finland who have an interest in science and technology, as well as from other countries. This year we have a very exciting list of presentations, so consider coming even if you do not have one. As last year, we are hoping for very exciting conversations to take place.

Timetable:

Thursday 15.3; 15.45-18.15; room Natura N101

Jose Cañada: More-than-human intersectionality: understanding categorization, indentification and boundary-making during pandemic processes
Salla Sariola & Elina Oinas: Living-with microbes in the era of antimicrobial resistance
Venla Oikkonen: Pandemic vaccination, vaccine harm and the politics of futurity
Mikko Hyyryläinen: Kulttuurin ja kognition sosiologia – mielen sosiologiaa vai kognitiivista sosiologiaa?
Johanna Hokka: Sociology, Science Policy Ideals on ’Excellence’ and the symbolic struggles over legitimate science – Finnish and Swedish Sociology as a case in point

Friday 16.3; 9.00-11.30; room Natura N104

Vera Raivola: Making sense of a blood bank biobank
Annerose Böhrer: Metaphors in organ transplantation and the role of donor cards
Mikko Jauho: Structuring the Cardiovascular Health Arena – the Double Risk Object of Dietary Fat and Cholesterol
Riikka Homanen: Hetero- ja parinormitonta sukulaisuutta tekemässä? Itselliset naiset ja naisparit yksityisissä hedelmöityshoidoissa
Karolina Snell & Heta Tarkkala: Goldmining Nordic population(s) – data, health and policy

The workshop has been organized and will be chaired by Heta Tarkkala, University of Eastern Finland/University of Helsinki (heta.tarkkala@uef.fi), Karoliina Snell, University of Helsinki (karoliina.snell@helsinki.fi), and Vera Raivola University of Eastern Finland (vera.raivola@student.uef.fi). Please get in touch with them if you have any questions about the session.

Greetings from our Sosiologipäivät STS -working group (23-24.3.2017)

Around three months ago, we published a call for papers for the “Science, technology and society” working group that the STS Helsinki group organized at the Annual Conference of the Westermarck Society, more commonly known as Sosiologipäivät (Sociology Days in Finnish). We were happy to receive quite many abstracts, which resulted in two very fruitful and intense sessions with a total of 17 presentations taking place during the 23rd and 24th of March at the University of Tampere.

We divided our working group into five smaller thematic sessions.

Session 1: ANT and technology

Elina Paju, Minna Ruckenstein and Päivi Berg explored in their paper children’s physical activity as an issue of neoliberal government through the products of ReimaGo activity sensor for kids and the Pokemon GO game. Mervi Jalonen focused on the notion of experiment in an innovation-based society, discussing various examples of experiments aimed to facilitate sustainability transitions. Meanwhile Oskari Lappalainen presented ongoing work on the development of personal data economy through the social movement called MyData.

Session 2: Fertility and reproduction

Elina Helosvuori discussed her ethnographic study on infertility, deploying the notion of excess to grasp the personal experiences generated through IVF. Riikka Homanen turned the focus on transnational egg donation where enacting Nordicness, whiteness and kinness is at play. Lise Eriksson presented a paper on surrogacy and uterus transplantation from the point of view of medical knowledge production.

Session 3: Social research, impact and policy

Reetta Muhonen presented a project tracking research in social sciences and humanities with a practical side by following projects from different sites in Europe. Kamilla Karhunmaa talked about energy policy and different expectations in the field in the Finnish context. Juha-Pekka Lauronen discussed how social research’s impact in society is understood among policymakers, researchers and science administrators. Johanna Hokka introduced research on orthodox definitions of sociology among Finnish and Swedish professors.

Session 4: Knowledge production

Salla Sariola’s presentation discussed the governance of international clinical trials in India, showing how civil society activists managed to negotiate changes in the regulations guiding them. Minna Ruckenstein analysed breakages and gaps in data and the practices of repair involved in using such data for research. Annika Lonkila’s theme was the use and non-use of genomic knowledge on dairy farms, specifically the practices involved in the selection of animals for breeding. Anuradha Nayak presented the case of cryo-preserved life and the legal problems regarding the status and ownership of the preserved ‘material’.

Session 5: Genes and molecular life

Mianna Meskus, explored craftsmanship as a way to describe the use of cutting-edge biotechnology in the field of stem cell research. Secondly, Heta Tarkkala introduced her work on the Finnish biobanking scene, in which genetic uniqueness and difference appear as sources of value for the use of Finnish samples in international biological research. Finally, our last presentation had Venla Oikkonen present some ideas related to how genomes and DNA relate to temporality, belonging and nostalgia.

Finally, we were happy to see that so many scholars with such varied topics, but still many common interests, came together and shared ideas. Hopefully, this was only the first of many other encounters to come in which the STS community in Finland starts to take shape. We would like to especially thank all the presenters for their work and willingness to participate. See you all next year!

Join the the Finnish Reproductive Studies Network (FireSNet)

The Finnish Reproductive Studies Network (FireSNet) brings together scholars from fields of social and political sciences, humanities, law, health sciences and medicine exploring reproduction not merely as physical birth but more broadly as an agent of bodily, biological, viral, sexual and cultural transformation. The common commitment of the researchers in the network is to inquire into the historical and current complexities of reproductive practices and policies. This commitment on reproduction studies derivers from women’s health movements and a long scholarly interest in developing a toolkit to grasp sociotechnical webs that constitute reproductive practice. In short, studies on reproduction not only show how perceptions and practices of reproduction are multiple and contested, but also how questions of power relations, resources, skills, suffering, hope, meaning, and lives are always at stake.

The Finnish Reproductive Studies Network is founded on the need to establish a common discussion forum for scholars scattered in different higher education institutions in Finland, looking at reproduction from various perspectives. The purpose of the network is to support, develop and inspire different collaborative efforts in research and teaching. We will be arranging seminars with international speakers, workshops, and provide a platform for joint funding applications. The network will also distribute research publications authored by its members. The network also has an email list, FiReSNet@uta.fi.

The network invites scholars from all career stages exploring the following questions and more: How does reproduction matter in social life and society? How are our futures, origins, selves and kin organized by societal and institutional power relations? What are the changing conditions for reproductive freedom and justice, and for whom? How are gendered, racialized, sexed and classed human and non-human bodies, body parts and tissue reproduced, commodified, transported, governed and cared for in local and transnational spaces?

The network launch meeting with members from Finland is planned to take place November 17, 2017.

The network is organized by Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Riikka Homanen from the University of Tampere and Academy Research Fellow Dr. Mianna Meskus from the University of Helsinki.

If you would like to join the network and the email list, please contact Riikka Homanen, Riikka.Homanen@uta.fi or Mianna Meskus, Mianna.Meskus@helsinki.fi. Also please feel free to distribute this call for members in your own networks.

Research diving – or understanding one’s way of working in isolation

The Pomodoro technique.

Three hours of writing before checking your e-mail.

The procrastination notebook.

Social media blockers

These have become relatively common techniques to fight the lack of concentration in writing research. At the same time, many lunch conversations drift towards this topic in the hope of finding yet new ones. They usually work for a while, they fail, then we take up a new one. Once we run out of them, we go back to the one that worked for that very productive week. It is almost like remembering an old forgotten love. We go around them in cycles of productivity. It is common to blame the lack of productivity on everyday life annoyances, whether they are work related or not. The objective of those techniques is to build temporary walls between oneself and those disturbances. However, the collapse of those walls is generally one click away and it seems that, as soon as we become too familiar with them, we sort of stop respecting them too.

The procrastination book: every time you remember something you need to do, write it down and do it after you are finished.

During January and February I had the chance to use a technique a bit more radical than those everyday life ones. I went to a two-month writing retreat at the Saari Residence, located in Mynämäki, one of the perks of being funded by Kone Foundation. I had wanted to do something like this since I started my PhD back in 2013 and I thought of it as an isolating experience, like building a huge spatial wall between me and the rest of the world. However, I suddenly realized that isolation was not exactly the word to describe it. As Internet lurks nowadays everywhere (and is even a basic tool for the process of writing), I found out that many of those annoyances were still present. It was rather a diving process: I managed to dive into my research and be surrounded by it from morning to evening. This does not mean that I worked 24/7 (is that even possible or sane) but that I would allow myself to write uninterruptedly when I was at my most productive moment. I realized the huge role that social commitments and responsibilities play in my writing and how many times I must leave the office at the end of working hours despite being at the best moment of the day. The retreat was useful in order to let those moments (of inspiration, of focus) come in in full force and embrace them until they are gone.

Surroundings of the Saari Residence

My isolation was not complete, I was surrounded by a great group of people in a similar state of mind, which helped share the experience and understand it. Company is important, for the sake of sanity. This sort of isolation worked for me in a very different way than other techniques. Instead of disciplining my time, I let time discipline my work. This is probably not doable as a long-term venture. Research outside a research community becomes a bit more futile in my opinion, and so everything I wrote did not fully make sense until I went back to civilization. However, I find that such retreats (even shorter ones) can be extremely helpful not only for the sake of productivity but also for the sake of understanding one’s work and connecting with one’s research through immersion.

Perhaps those walls are not so much about blocking annoyances out but about how much space we leave inside for us to work comfortably.

Uusi tieto ja strategiat globaaleihin biologisiin uhkiin valmistautumisessa

CDC and MSF doctors preparing to enter an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia (2015)

CDC:n ja MSF:n lääkärit valmistautuvat hoitamaan Ebola-potilaita Liberiassa (2015). Author: CDC Global.

Viimeisen 15 vuoden aikana olemme kohdanneet säännöllisesti pandemiauhkia ja hätätilanneilmoituksia: SARS (2003), lintuinfluenssa (2005), sikainfluenssa (2009), MERS-CoV (2013), Ebola (2014) ja viimeisimpänä Zikavirus. Eri maiden hallinnoissa ja kansainvälisissä järjestöissä tehdään työtä niin näiden kuin muidenkin bio-uhkien – kuten bioterrorismin ja laboratorivahinkojen – hoitamiseksi ja ennaltaehkäisemiseksi. Väitöskirjassani analysoin julkisia dokumentteja, haastattelen asiantuntijoita ja arvioin tieteellisiä uutisia aiheeseen liittyen. Näistä aineistoista katson miten uusi tieto luo ja ohjaa uusia strategioita ja lääketieteellisiä vastatoimia, joiden vaikutukset ulottuvat erilaisiin elämämuotoihin aina ihmisväestöistä, eläimiin ja viruksiin saakka.

Pidempi ja tarkempi versio tästä tekstistä on saatavilla englanniksi.

New knowledges and strategies in preparing for global biological threats

CDC and MSF doctors preparing to enter an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia (2015). Author: CDC Global.

During the last 15 years, we have been facing regular pandemic threats and declarations of emergency. In 2003, SARS emerged in Hong Kong and was dealt efficiently by the World Health Organization (WHO). 2005 saw the rise of Avian Influenza as a great concern which has yet to materialize. In 2009, the H1N1 Influenza, sometimes called swine flu, originated in North America. This time WHO received strong criticism for the way it handled the situation. In 2013, MERS-CoV, a similar virus to SARS, started to be detected in the Middle East and, even though the situation has not gotten out of the region except for a small outbreak in South Korea, the situation is surveilled closely. 2014 was the start of the biggest Ebola outbreak until now, and recently, Zika became the most novel threat to global health.

Governments and international organizations have been investing more and more funds towards preparing for such biological threats. Besides these natural outbreaks, these programs generally include other sources such as bioterrorist attacks or biosafety accidents as the result of working with genetically modified viruses in laboratories. As these different threats are tied together, the strategies, the knowledge and the implementation practices in front of them change too.

In my thesis, I have been analysing public documents from national governments and international organizations. In addition, I have been interviewing international experts on the topic and reviewed scientific news regarding pandemic threats. Inside that material, I have looked for descriptions of how new knowledge on these biological threats is created. I continue to look at how that knowledge goes on to inform new strategies and medical countermeasures to deal with those threats and, finally, how once a pandemic emergency is declared, those new ways of fighting pandemics might affect and alter different forms of life, from human populations to animals or even viruses themselves.

What is interesting about this topic is that, as these threats are considered latent, governments and institutions attempt to create governmental tools to deal with them before they happen or even are identified. At that stage, all threats are considered equally despite differing characteristics such as cause, source or infectious agent. The new strategies take these features into account and, as a result, aim at intervening in new spaces and earlier in time as they try to tackle all threats at their source, before they grow enough to be global threats.