Potentiality and Humanness: Revisiting the Anthropological Object in Contemporary Biomedicine
2013; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 54; Issue: S7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/671568
ISSN1537-5382
Autores Tópico(s)Race, Genetics, and Society
ResumoNext article FreePotentiality and Humanness: Revisiting the Anthropological Object in Contemporary Biomedicine Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 7Leslie C. AielloLeslie C. Aiello Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMorePotentiality and Humanness: Revisiting the Anthropological Object in Contemporary Biomedicine is the seventh Wenner-Gren Symposium to be published as an open-access supplement of Current Anthropology and the 144th symposium in the Wenner-Gren symposium series (see http://www.wennergren.org/history/conferences-seminars-symposia/wenner-gren-symposia for a complete list of symposia and the history of the symposium program). The Potentiality and Humanness symposium was organized by Klaus Hoeyer (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Karen-Sue Taussig (University of Minnesota, U.S.A.) and was held October 28 to November 4, 2011, at the Hotel Rosa dos Ventos, in Teresópolis, Brazil (fig. 1).Figure 1. Participants in the symposium “Potentiality and Humanness.” Seated, from left: Adriana Petryna, Tine Gammeltoft, Bob Simpson, Sharon Kaufman, Emily Martin, Mette Svendsen, Jianfeng Zhu, Sahra Gibbon. Standing, from left: Michael Montoya, Klaus Hoeyer, Stefan Timmermans, Karen-Sue Taussig, Sebastian Mohr, Lynn Morgan, Carrie Friese, Kalindi Vora, Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Stefan Helmreich, Laurie Obbink.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointOver the past four decades, the Wenner-Gren Foundation has had an interest in all aspects of the anthropology of human health. Earlier symposia addressed, for example, the relationships between traditional and modern medicine (Leslie 1976), diseases in populations in transition (Swedlund and Armelagos 1990), the anthropological analysis in medical anthropology (Lindenbaum and Lock 1993), and the politics of reproduction (Rapp and Ginsburg 1995). Other symposia concentrated on emerging challenges and developments such as HIV/AIDS (Herdt and Lindenbaum 1992), the Human Genome Diversity Project and other new developments in genetics (Goodman, Heath, and Lindee 2003), and modern plagues and epidemics (Herring and Swedlund 2010).Potentiality and Humanness follows in this tradition through its focus on modern developments in all aspects of the life sciences, medical practice, and related policy that impinge on humans at the genetic, cellular, individual, and population levels. The overriding question is what it means to be human in an age where biological and medical interventions once considered impossible are now possible. How do the miracles of modern science affect people living in societies as diverse as China, Vietnam, Brazil, Denmark, Sri Lanka, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom? And what can anthropology tell us about the human experience in the context of the rapidly changing medical environment?The symposium and resulting collection of papers focus on the concept of potentiality as both an analytic through which to approach these issues and an object of study in itself that deserves more attention. The organizers argue in their introduction that potentiality can be a hopeful idiom through which to imagine the benefits of new medical interventions and at the same time evoke anxiety through negativity that might result from such interventions (Taussig, Hoeyer, and Helmreich 2013). They stress that the importance of potentiality as an anthropological focus is its interaction “with utopic and dystopic visions of the future of humanness, framed as much in terms of limiting as realizing potentials.”Potentiality is a broad-ranging concept, and the contributions to this issue are equally broad-ranging. They are grouped in four major areas that demonstrate biomedical potentiality in the context of politics, economics, kinship and relatedness, and the human condition. Papers range, for example, from the “haunting” futures in Vietnamese pregnancy care (Gammeltoft 2013), to the politics involved with newborn screening (Timmermans and Buchbinder 2013) and with the genomic age (Lee 2013), to the economics and allocation of potential in relation to kidney transplants (Kaufman 2013) and in relation to the right to recovery (Petryna 2013), to kinship and reproduction in the context of transnational Indian gestational surrogacy (Vora 2013) and in the context cancer genetics in southern Brazil (Gibbon 2013).Potentiality and Humanness deals with big questions that have relevance both to anthropology as a discipline and to the modern world. The Wenner-Gren Foundation is always looking for big questions and innovative new ideas in all areas of anthropology for future Foundation-sponsored and Foundation-organized symposia and eventual CA publication. We encourage anthropologists to contact us with their proposals for future meetings. Information about the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the symposium program, application procedures and deadlines, and what constitutes a good symposium topic can be found on the Foundation’s website (http://wennergren.org/programs/international-symposia).References CitedGammeltoft, Tine M. 2013. Potentiality and human temporality: haunting futures in Vietnamese pregnancy care. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S159–S171.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarGibbon, Sahra. 2013. Ancestry, temporality, and potentiality: engaging cancer genetics in southern Brazil. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S107–S117.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarGoodman, Alan H., Deborah Heath, and M. Susan Lindee, eds. 2003. Genetic nature/culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHerdt, Gilbert, and Shirley Lindenbaum, eds. 1992. The time of AIDS. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarHerring, D. Ann, and Alan C. Swedlund, eds. 2010. Plagues and epidemics: infected spaces past and present. Wenner-Gren International Symposium Series. Oxford and New York: Berg.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarKaufman, Sharon R. 2013. Fairness and the tyranny of potential in kidney transplantation. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S56–S66.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarLee, Sandra Soo-Jin. 2013. American DNA: the politics of potentiality in a genomic age. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S77–S86.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarLeslie, Charles, ed. 1976. Asian medical systems: a comparative study. Berkeley: University of California Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarLindenbaum, Shirley, and Margaret Lock, eds. 1993. Knowledge, power and practice. Berkeley: University of California Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarPetryna, Adriana. 2013. The right of recovery. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S67–S76.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarRapp, Rayna, and Faye Ginsburg, eds. 1995. Conceiving the new world order. Berkeley: University of California Press.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarSwedlund, Alan, and George Armelagos, eds. 1990. Disease in populations in transition. New York: Bergin & Garvey.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarTaussig¸ Karen-Sue, Klaus Hoeyer, and Stefan Helmreich. 2013. The anthropology of potentiality in biomedicine: an introduction to supplement 7. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S3–S14.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarTimmermans, Stefan, and Mara Buchbinder. 2013. Potentializing newborn screening. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S26–S35.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarVora, Kalindi. 2013. Potential, risk, and return in transnational Indian gestational surrogacy. Current Anthropology 54(suppl. 7):S97–S106.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarNotesLeslie C. Aiello is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor North, New York, New York 10016, U.S.A.). Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number S7October 2013Potentiality and Humanness: Revisiting the Anthropological Object in Contemporary Biomedicine Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/671568 Views: 608Total views on this site © 2013 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.
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