Stephen Hilgartner (Cornell): Knowledge-Control Regimes in Genomics

Invitation to the Monday Colloquium Talk at Deutsches Museum

At the edges of emerging science and technology, actors often struggle to establish control over knowledge. This lecture examines this process in the field of genomics, using examples from the Human Genome Project and from recent postgenomic work. I introduce a theoretical framework that focuses attention on “knowledge-control regimes”—lawlike regimes that allocate entitlements and burdens pertaining to knowledge, shaping who can validate, access, transfer, manage, and use it, and in what ways. The analysis shows that the epistemic problem of securing knowledge and the sociopolitical problem of securing control are deeply, even inseparably, intertwined. From the moment of their first emergence knowledge objects are thoroughly embedded in control relationships. Yet more than mere embedding is involved. Relationships intended to allocate control do not merely surround knowledge objects but are also actively built into them, in ways that affect scientific collaboration, secrecy, ownership, and the power to shape technological futures. Implications for areas beyond genomics, such as information technology and data science, are explored.

When: Monday, July 1, 2019, 4:30 pm

Where: Deutsches Museum, Alter Seminarraum, Bibliotheksbau, Museumsinsel 1

The talk is part of the Monday Colloquium at Deutsches Museum. The lecture series' main theme in the summer semester 2019 will be "Cooperation and Competition in the Sciences". For the full program click here.