MIT STS Colloquium** Monday, March 16, 2015 4 PM Talk | 3:30 PM Reception E51-095
Entangled Histories, Postcolonial Ambivalence, and Shifting Cultures of Science in India Amit Prasad University of Missouri - Columbia & Lilly Irani University of California - Irvine Abstract: ‘Make in India’ is the new mantra of the Indian Government. It is being presented as ‘a major new national program’. The lion, with its body made of mechanical wheels, which is the symbol of the program, leaves little to doubt that technoscientific research and innovation are central elements of the program. The program is being touted not merely as a new policy intervention, but also as a ‘new mindset’. The focus on ‘new’, although it seems necessary and useful, betrays a broader postcolonial ambivalence that has been commonly evident in technoscientific initiatives in India. What is the ‘old’ that needs to be transcended, for example? The answer to this question may seem obvious. However, absence of historical record of particular sciences, beyond the few pieces of information that have been used to define lag and lack of sciences in India and other non-Western countries, presents a paradoxical situation – technoscientific initiatives (including those aimed at rewriting history) seek to highlight an Indian identity and creativity and yet they remain entrapped within Eurocentrism. Instead of particularistic and comparative approaches, I wish to shift the debate to entangled histories of technoscience. In this presentation I draw upon my study of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and stem cell research to highlight two genealogies of technoscientific research in India. I show how technosciences operate through complex and hierarchical entanglements of identity, institutional norms, and laboratory practices that cut across nations. A focus on entangled histories of sciences, I argue, also necessitates rethinking the categories through which we define and practice sciences, including those of the west and the non-west. **This colloquium has a pre-circulated paper component. If you plan to attend and would like to use the paper to prepare please email me directly at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.
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