Introduction
Daniel Renfrew’s Life Without Lead: Contamination, Crisis, and Hope in Uruguay (2018) is a masterful undertaking on the anthropology of disaster and its everydayness. An ethnographic portrayal that is prismatic in its attention, the book combines numerous elements––place, civic performance, history, political economy––to bear on the lead poisoning epidemic in Montevideo, Uruguay at the turn of the 21st…
© Elizabeth F. S. RobertsThese are pots and dishes. They transmit food and love. They transmit lead. They transmit class. They transmit enduring inequality and new forms of environmental degradation. These transmissions are conveyed through food, love, and chemical leaching. These pots are for sale in working class neighborhoods in Mexico City. They are passed around in families. They …
Science and Technology Studies (STS) can engage with social movements in a variety of forms. STS scholarship has provided methods, theories, and concepts related to how information and values are communicated between scientific disciplines and affected communities, how those communities are formed and/or dissolved around matters of concern, how they are (not) listened to and (not) legitimated, and how issues …
I am a cultural anthropologist who conducts research with deaf children and their families in Mexico City. Echarle ganas is a Mexican colloquial expression that roughly translates to “you have to give it your all.” “Échale ganas!” or “work at it!” is often heard as a rallying cry when things are not going as desired. This saying is …
I have been conducting research on intellectual disability and care practices among families of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in Porto Alegre, Brazil, since 2014.1 Despite the many differences in family arrangements, class, race, and sociocultural background, most of my interlocutors share a common concern: “Who will care for my child once I am no longer able to do so?” As …
This article describes the main discussions and contributions of the first workshop of the International Research Network on Disruptive Behaviours. The workshop was held at the “Centre for Research in Medicine, Science, Health, Mental Health and Society” (CERMES-3) in Paris, in January 2017. The second network workshop will be organised by the “Transdisciplinary Laboratory in Social Practices and …