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Placing a New Science: Exploring Spatial and Temporal Configurations of Synthetic Biology

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The Local Configuration of New Research Fields

Part of the book series: Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook ((SOSC,volume 29))

Abstract

Synthetic biology is a field that can be and often is described as “emerging”. The field-in-emergence is creating futures, problems and new objects that remain elusive. By turning an ethnographic gaze on the nascent stages of a new research field, we can pose interesting questions about the formation of local configurations and their relations to wider policies and actions in ways that the analysis of established fields would struggle to illuminate. In this paper we explore how a new field such as synthetic biology is actively ‘placed’, tracing the development of the field in the UK and in France. The concept of ‘placing’ allows us to interrogate the local configurations of an emerging field and tie these into non-local manoeuvres. The concept permits us to comprehend and link entities that are commonly differentiated as “local” (universities, research teams), “national” (funding, policy-streams, public debates, platforms), and “non-local” (international competitions, international conferences and publications). Placing a science means that the practices and discourses of the science co-emerge with its modes of organisation and geographies and with its histories and futures.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Both authors have been following the field circa 6 years. Initially we established relations with a single research group in the UK that was leading a new synbio Network. This gave us access to a wide range of meetings and contact with other research groups. As members of the Network we were able to gather data through observations and have access to the research groups’ progress ‘as it happened’. Informal and formal interviews were conducted, in labs as people worked; during national and international meetings and documents produced by this and other groups were analysed as they emerged. New kinds of research relations have been built in France since 2012 that extend our data collection to public participation activities. In the UK, relations have extended to co-writing of funding proposals and co-supervision of research students. For a similar long-term approach to nanoscience, see Vinck, Chap. 5.

  2. 2.

    In contrast to the UK situation, there is no funding scheme or specific programme for synthetic biology in France (Képès 2012; Pei et al. 2012); and up to 2013 neither the National Agency for Research (ANR) nor the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) had dedicated funding.

  3. 3.

    Students are given a kit with standard biological parts (chunks of DNA) in order to work in teams at their universities, over one summer, to build biological systems, operate them in a living cell and later present their work at MIT.

  4. 4.

    The competition has grown enormously over the years to the effect that, nowadays, regional finals are held throughout the world, prior to the main “jamboree” (http://igem.org).

  5. 5.

    The fieldwork presented here was conducted by SMH with one of the seven funded Networks in the period 2008–2011.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agro ParisTech (UFR Sociologies) and INRA (SenS), 16, rue Claude Bernard, 75005, Paris, France

    Morgan Meyer

  2. Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road, S10 2TU, Sheffield, UK

    Susan Molyneux-Hodgson

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  1. Morgan Meyer
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  2. Susan Molyneux-Hodgson
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Correspondence to Morgan Meyer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Science Communication and Higher Education Research, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria

    Martina Merz

  2. Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Philippe Sormani

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Meyer, M., Molyneux-Hodgson, S. (2016). Placing a New Science: Exploring Spatial and Temporal Configurations of Synthetic Biology. In: Merz, M., Sormani, P. (eds) The Local Configuration of New Research Fields. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22683-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22683-5_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22682-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22683-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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