Spectres of Seppo: the afterlives of Finland's nuclear waste experts

This article examines how Finland's nuclear waste repository safety assessment experts summoned memories of Seppo: a deceased colleague whose ‘spectre’ was said to still ‘haunt’ their workplace. First, it tracks how Seppo appeared in predecessor parables: cautionary tales told about his death, which conveyed value judgements about how experts ought to act, engage, and aspire. Second, it explores how Seppo's long-time ‘right-hand man’ Gustav still felt haunted by his colleague's affective intensities, scientific vision, and sharp tongue. This led Gustav to prod his workmates to reconsider how they modelled Finland's ecosystems many millennia into the future. Studying this ethnographically revealed how traces of Seppo's past life infused living experts with emotions, opened them to alternative futures, and spurred them to rethink their professional values. This article concludes by introducing expert afterlives as a temporal, epistemic, and affective nexus that can shape how technocratic projects are organized and how expert knowledge is made.     

What's in a (Big) Name? The Art and Agency of a Bornean Photographic Collection

This article concerns the photographic collection of Paka anak Otor, the Bidayuh owner of a ‘mini-museum’ in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, and how it became entangled in his claims to status within and beyond his village. Superficially, the situation is easily apprehended via two analogous approaches within photographic theory and Southeast Asianist ethnography, which treat objects and images as representations or bearers of power and meaning. Here I suggest that such approaches end up eliding the action-centred nature of Paka's ‘big name’-making ambitions. In response, I approach his photographic collection through an analytical framework deriving from Alfred Gell's seminal theory, Art and Agency (1998), which has hitherto remained marginal to Southeast Asianist anthropology. I argue that, more than merely symbolising or bearing his ‘big name’, Paka's photographs were agentive image-objects that actively instantiated it. I conclude by asking how such an analytical shift might encourage a reconceptualisation of ‘power’ and ‘objecthood’ in Southeast Asianist anthropology.     

Connecting domination contracts

In Black Rights/White Wrongs, Charles Mills continues his critique of contemporary American political philosophy for ignoring issues of racial oppression, and in particular for ignoring the way that liberal social contracts rest on underlying domination contracts. In this commentary, I will discuss some of the new research inspired by Mills’ account of domination contracts, including recent accounts of the “capability contract” and the “species contract”, and explore how they relate to Mills’ own work on the “racial contract”. While this new research on diverse domination contracts confirms the richness of Mills’ analysis of the social contract tradition, it may also require some revisions to his own preferred vision of how we theorize racial justice.     

What Bateson had in Mind About ‘Mind’?

G. Bateson believed that the scientific school of the future would be ‘ecology of mind’. The first aim of this paper is to understand what he meant by ‘mind’, and the other is to understand how this concept emerged in his thought, i.e., how its meaning would become more flexible throughout his life and work. Furthermore, we will approach the epistemological implications of ecology of mind for scientific education in the West. Bateson’s concept of mind emerged when he became aware (in 1926) of his own way of thinking, i.e., of his immense abductive capacity. This led him to search for patterns of similarity and difference between organisms (like in homology). Later, he identified this thought process as being abstract and formal, relating not just facts but also ideas. Afterwards, Bateson developed criteria for us to consider a system as being mental, with special emphasis on living and cybernetic systems.     

“A Massive Long Way”: Interconnecting Histories, a “Special Child,” ADHD, and Everyday Family Life

Focusing on one family from a study of dual-earner middle-class families carried out in Los Angeles, California, this article draws on interview and video-recorded data of everyday interactions to explore illness and healing as embedded in the microcultural context of the Morris family. For this family, an important aspect of what is at stake for them in their daily lives is best understood by focusing on 9-year-old Mark, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this article, we grapple with the complexity of conveying some sense of how Mark’s condition is experienced and relationally enacted in everyday contexts. Through illuminating connections between lives as lived and lives as told, we explore the narrative structuring of healing in relation to Mark’s local moral world with the family at its center. We examine how his parents understand the moral consequences of the child’s past for his present and future, and work to encourage others to give due weight to his troubled beginnings before this child joined the Morris family. At the same time, we see how the Morris parents act to structure Mark’s moral experience and orient to a desired future in which Mark’s “success” includes an appreciation of how he is accountable to others for his actions. Through our analyses, we also seek to contribute to discussions on what is at stake in everyday life contexts for children with ADHD and their families, through illuminating aspects of the cultural, moral and relational terrain that U.S. families navigate in contending with a child’s diagnosis of ADHD. Further, given that ADHD is often construed as a “disorder of volition,” we seek to advance anthropological theorizing about the will in situations where volitional control over behavior is seen to be disordered.     

“The Instinct Concept of the Early Konrad Lorenz”

Peculiar to Konrad Lorenz’s view of instinctive behavior is his strong innate-learned dichotomy. He claimed that there are neither ontogenetic nor phylogenetic transitions between instinctive and experience-based behavior components, thus contradicting all former accounts of instinct. The present study discusses how Lorenz came to hold this controversial position by examining the history of Lorenz’s early theoretical development in the crucial period from 1931 to 1937, taking relevant influences into account. Lorenz’s intellectual development is viewed as being guided by four theoretical and practical commitments as to how to study and explain behavior. These four factors, which were part of the general approach of Lorenz but not of other animal psychologists, were crucial in bringing about his specific position on instinctive behavior.     

Key informants on the history of anthropology: an itinerary

The history of anthropology is a growing field of study within the discipline itself. Our series ‘Key Informants on the History of Anthropology’ contributes to the discussion of how anthropology, as it is understood and practised today, evolved and took shape. In the following invited contribution Marc Augé, Professor of Anthropology at École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, reflects back on his work in Africa, in light of his more recent explorations of contemporary global issues. He observes how history intervenes also with previous research ‘as if the facts which I observed in former times were only taking on their full meaning today’. This relationship between past and present research reinforces his faith in social anthropology as a discipline that is particularly well suited to address contemporary issues of globalisation.     

Methodology in Aristotle’s Theory of Spontaneous Generation

Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation offers many puzzles to those who wish to understand his theory both within the context of his biology and within the context of his more general philosophy of nature. In this paper, I approach the difficult and vague elements of Aristotle’s account of spontaneous generation not as weaknesses, but as opportunities for an interesting glimpse into the thought of an early scientist struggling to reconcile evidence and theory. The paper has two goals: (1) to give as charitable and full an account as possible of what Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation was, and to examine some of its consequences; and (2) to reflect on Aristotle as a scientist, and what his comments reveal about how he approached a difficult problem. In particular, I propose that the well-recognized problem of the incompatibility between Aristotle’s concept of spontaneity and his theory of spontaneous generation presents an opportunity for insight into his scientific methodology when approaching ill-understood phenomena.     

Darwin’s Galapagos gourd: providing new insights 175 years after his visit

The year 2010 marks the 175th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s visit to the Galapagos Islands. A recent paper by J. C. Briggs, ‘Darwin’s biogeography’ (Journal of Biogeography, 2009, 36 , 1011–1017), summarizes Darwin’s contributions to the field of biogeography, stressing the importance of his natural history specimens. Here, we illustrate how a plant collected by Darwin during his visit to Floreana and not collected since can provide insights into dispersal to oceanic islands as well as extinction of island plants, based on ancient DNA from Darwin’s herbarium specimen.     

‘Pho’ Phai and faux phais: The market for fakes and the appropriation of a Vietnamese national symbol

When Hanoi's favorite painter Bui Xuan Phai died in 1988, he became a legend in Vietnamese art circles. He was known as much for his paintings of ‘Old’ Hanoi streets ‐ earning him the nickname of Pho'Phai or ‘street’ Phai‐ as for his frequent visits to the underground cafes where banned writers spent their evenings drinking and philosophizing. As the Vietnamese economy improved in the early 1990s, a clientele for his paintings began to develop among Westerners visiting Hanoi. Gradually, it became increasingly clear that most of the paintings on the market attributed to Phai were in fact forgeries. This article will discuss the expectations of Westerners and their interest in an ‘authentic’ Vietnamese painting and its contrast to Vietnamese visions of their city in decay. The article illustrates how opposite notions of ‘authenticity’ and history define the cultural production of taste and alter perceptions about art and the ‘Orient.’     

The natural history of visiting: responses to Charles Waterton and Walton Hall

Natural history collections are typically studied in terms of how they were formed rather than how they were received. This gives us only half the picture. Visiting accounts can increase our historical understanding of collections because they can tell us how people in the past understood them. This essay examines the responses of visitors to Walton Hall in West Yorkshire, home of the traveller-naturalist Charles Waterton and his famous taxidermic collection. Waterton’s specimens were not interpreted in isolation. Firstly, they were experienced as components of a larger visiting experience, in which travelling to the Hall, being admitted to the grounds, viewing the park, and meeting the owner, were all just as significant as seeing the specimens themselves. Secondly, they were interpreted in conjunction with familiar stories and images relating to Waterton’s adventurous collecting activities. Visiting accounts can help us begin to recover what people thought about Waterton and his collection in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, in so far as they were responsible for a large part of his subsequent reputation, they can help us better understand our own, present-day conceptions of Charles Waterton and Walton Hall.     

Garland Allen,Thomas Hunt Morgan,and Development

Garland E. Allen’s 1978 biography of the Nobel Prize winning biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan provides an excellent study of the man and his science. Allen presents Morgan as an opportunistic scientist who follows where his observations take him, leading him to his foundational work in Drosophila genetics. The book was rightfully hailed as an important achievement and it introduced generations of readers to Morgan. Yet, in hindsight, Allen’s book largely misses an equally important part of Morgan’s work – his study of development and regeneration. It is worth returning to this part of Morgan, exploring what Morgan contributed and also why he has been seen by contemporaries and historians such as Allen as having set aside some of the most important developmental problems. A closer look shows how Morgan’s view of cells and development that was different from that of his most noted contemporaries led to interpretation of his important contributions in favor of genetics. This essay is part of a special issue, revisiting Garland Allen's views on the history of life sciences in the twentieth century.     

Spinoza,Styron, and the Ethics of Healing

In this essay I discuss a passage from William Styron’s memoir of his long struggle with chronic severe depression, from the standpoint of a Spinozian understanding of agency and self-worth. In this passage Styron relates how in hearing a piece of music he was abruptly struck by a recollection of “all the joys [his] house had known” and how this brought a realization that it would be wrong for him to kill himself: wrong because it would be an abandonment of those who had shared in those joys and a “desecration” of himself. He tells how this realization led him to admit himself to hospital for treatment and thereby to a slow and difficult recovery. This, I propose, illustrates the Spinozian idea that the value of an individual life is properly understood in terms of that individual’s participation in the actualization of a shared value and that individual agency is empowered by the knowledge of such value.     

A dark business,full of shadows: Analogy and theology in William Harvey

In a short work called De conceptione appended to the end of his Exercitationes de generatione animalium (1651), William Harvey developed a rather strange analogy. To explain how such marvelous productions as living beings were generated from the rather inauspicious ingredients of animal reproduction, Harvey argued that conception in the womb was like conception in the brain. It was mostly rejected at the time; it now seems a ludicrous theory based upon homonymy. However, this analogy offers insight into the structure and function of analogies in early modern natural philosophy. In this essay I hope to not only describe the complex nature of Harvey’s analogy, but also offer a novel interpretation of his use of analogical reasoning, substantially revising the account offered by Guido Giglioni (1993). I discuss two points of conceptual change and negotiation in connection with Harvey’s analogy, understanding it as both a confrontation between the border of the natural and the supernatural, as well as a moment in the history of psychology. My interpretation touches upon a number of important aspects, including why the analogy was rejected, how Harvey systematically deployed analogies according to his notions of natural philosophical method, how the analogy fits into contemporary discussions of analogies in science, and finally, how the analogy must be seen in the context of changing Renaissance notions of the science of the soul, ultimately confronting the problem of how to understand final causality in Aristotelian science. In connection with the last, I conclude the essay by turning to how Harvey embeds the analogy within a natural theological cosmology.     

A Doctor’s Testimony: Medical Neutrality and the Visibility of Palestinian Grievances in Jewish-Israeli Publics

This paper follows the testimony of Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian physician who bears witness to his experiences working, living, and suffering under Israeli rule. He presents his story as a doctor’s story, drawing on his identity as a medical professional to gain credibility and visibility and to challenge the limited legitimacy of Palestinian grievances. In this paper, I explore his testimony as a medical voice that at once recounts the suffering and loss endured by the Palestinian people and also struggles to negotiate the values associated with being a “reliable” witness. Consequently, I ethnographically examine the social life and reception of his story in Jewish-Israeli publics. In comparison with most Palestinian narratives, Abuelaish’s testimony achieved an extremely rare degree of visibility and sympathy, a phenomenon that calls out for analysis. I identify the boundaries that typically render Palestinian grievances invisible to Israeli publics and suggest how medicine’s self-proclaimed ethos of neutrality served as a channel for crossing them. Finally, I reflect on the political possibilities and limitations of medical witnessing to render suffering visible and arouse compassion toward those construed as a dangerous/enemy Other.     

Georgy Gause’s shift from ecology and evolutionary biology to antibiotics research: reasons,objectives, circumstances

Georgy Gause (1910–1986) is best known for his contribution to ecology and evolutionary theory. His book “The Struggle for Existence” (1934) inspired generations of ecologists. Yet his scientific interests were diverse, embracing many aspects of the life sciences and medicine. The most notable shift in his research took place in the early 1940s when he began to study antibiotics and discovered Gramicidin S. Superficially, this shift looked like an attempt to switch from purely theoretical to applied research during the years of World War II, but Gause’s decision may also have been seriously affected by the “Great Purge” and the growth of Lysenkoism. Personal factors played a significant role in his career too. In this article, we propose four factors which drove Gause to switch his focus from ecology to antibiotics: the inner logic of his scientific research, Stalin’s science policy and the growth of Lysenkoism, the sociopolitical influence of World War II, and personal relationships. We will also show how all these factors are interdependent to some extent.     

Fashioning the Immunological Self: The Biological Individuality of F. Macfarlane Burnet

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Australian microbiologist F. Macfarlane Burnet sought a biologically plausible explanation of antibody production. In this essay, we seek to recover the conceptual pathways that Burnet followed in his immunological theorizing. In so doing, we emphasize the influence of speculations on individuality, especially those of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead; the impact of cybernetics and information theory; and the contributions of clinical research into autoimmune disease that took place in Melbourne. We point to the influence of local experimental and intellectual currents on Burnet’s work. Accordingly, this essay describes an arc distinct from most other tracings of Burnet’s conceptual development, which focus on his early bacteriophage research, his fascination with the work of Julian Huxley and other biologists in the 1920s, and his interest in North Atlantic experimental investigations in the life sciences. No doubt these too were potent influences, but they seem insufficient to explain, for example, Burnet’s sudden enthusiasm in the 1940s for immunological definitions of self and not-self. We want to demonstrate here how Burnet’s deep involvement in philosophical biology – along with attention to local clinical research – provided him with additional theoretic tools and conceptual equipment, with which to explain immune function.     

Veridicom looks ahead

Well-known US supplier Veridicom has been through difficult times over the last year, but has managed to emerge with a fresh gameplan and strong views on today’s market. Btt presents an insight into how the company’s CEO Naeem Zafar (NZ) views the future for his company and the wider prospects for the biometric industry.     

The history of the Purine Club: a tribute to Prof. Geoffrey Burnstock

The international purinergic scientific community has lost its pioneer. Geoffrey Burnstock, born on the 10th of May 1929 in London, died on the 2nd of June 2020, aged 91, in Melbourne (Australia). Geoff was one of the most highly regarded scientists of his generation. In the 1960s and 1970s, he developed a radical and somehow heretical new theory and opened an entire new field of science, signalling via extracellular nucleotides (the “purinergic theory”), which revolutionized our understanding of how cells communicate between each other. Initially, his unconventional theory found a lot of resistance in the scientific community. Once, one scientist even threatened to devote his entire life to disproving Burnstock’s theory. Undeterred, Geoff went further on, and continued to accumulate evidence in favour of his hypothesis, and led the field ever since. He struggled to attract new scientists to this new field of research and, in the early 1990s, due to new molecular biology techniques making it possible to isolate and identify cell surface receptors for ATP and its breakdown product adenosine, did evidence emerge that eventually convinced the doubters. The number of spontaneous obituaries and messages honouring Geoff’s memory that have appeared on specialized Journals and in the public press throughout the world since last June indicates that many people are clearly affected by his death. Besides being a rigorous, ethical and extremely brilliant scientist, Geoff was an extraordinary human being, always eager to collaborate and share data, never jealous of his findings and capable of learning things even from young people. He was known for his enthusiasm, empathy and ability to motivate young scientists and promote their careers. After the establishment of the Purine Club back in the 1990s, numerous Purine Club Chapters have been formed around the world with Geoff’s help and encouragement. He has obviously also been the inspirator and founder of our Journal, Purinergic Signalling (PUSI). For this reason, Charles Kennedy, the current Editor of the Journal, and myself thought that it might be nice to invite representatives from all known Purine Clubs to send a few notes to be published in PUSI on the history of their club and how Geoff inspired, aided or supported them. Here, I have collected all their contributions and I share with the entire purinergic community my personal memories on how the Purine Club was born and developed thanks to the invaluable mentoring of Geoffrey Burnstock. I apologize in advance if I am missing some information or forgot to mention somebody, and I strongly encourage all readers to submit memories and additional information that I shall gather for future writing. Keeping alive the history of how the field developed will be the best tribute that we can play to celebrate Geoff’s work along the years.

     

Reflections on Grant Evans’ The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975

In this article I reflect on Grant Evans’ landmark and influential The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975, the way in which this book relates to the transformation from socialism to post‐socialism in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), to the crisis of legitimacy of the communist regime, and to issues of social memory, Buddhism, nationalism, iconography, and ethnic minorities. I also consider how other scholars have engaged with The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance both critically and supportively since the publication of the monograph in 1998 . I include in my analysis some observations on Evans’ quite radical change in political views over his career as a student, journalist and academic, culminating in his critique of socialism in general and the LPDR in particular and his controversial sympathy for the Lao monarchy.