{"title":"The moving city: scenes from the Delhi Metro and the social life of infrastructure","authors":"Weihang Wang","doi":"10.1080/1683478X.2022.2123087","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"life of lab workers interlaced with four studies of the “public life of blood” based on readings of newspaper reporting on national blood donation programmes, laboratory life, elections, and more. For Carsten this interlacing of media analyses with laboratory ethnography allows her “to calibrate the material in the ethnographic chapters [in order to] complement and broaden themes in the ethnography” (p. 27). It is this juxtaposition which allows Carsten to innovatively show how “medical lab technologists, lab technicians, receptionists, lab managers, and nurses (as well as donors and patients) are directly and indirectly informed by publicity about blood donation, health scares, stories about organ donation, or hospitals that appear in the media, by the ways these are picked up by members of the public who are also potential donors” (p. 27). As an example, Carsten shows how news coverage of blood drives allows blood donation to function as a “symbolic vector” linking matters of health, the family, selfless giving, and a “spirit of Malaysia.” She then goes on to ethnographically trace the bureaucratic forms that are filled out and the various screening tests that potential donors must undergo in blood banks, showing how “histories of relatedness and moral, medical, and other categories penetrate each other and are inseparably entangled within acts of blood donation [such that] donors can equally be construed as citizens of an ethnically plural nation” (pp. 71, 73). In recent decades, we have seen ethnographers develop novel analytical and methodological strategies that allow for ways of locating intimate experiences, such as working in a laboratory carrying out blood work in Penang, within processes that operate at another scale, such as nation-building and modernization that take shape through policy processes, media coverage, and governmental programmes. Such approaches have been described by Escobar as “institutional ethnography,” by Marcus as “multi-sited ethnography,” by Feldman as “non-local ethnography,” and by Wahlberg as “assemblage ethnography,” among scholars’ recently coined terms. Carsten has innovatively woven different scales together ethnographically, and in doing so has shown us how “a close examination of seemingly routine and understated practices, and the lives of those who enact them, has revealed how the supposedly separate domains of kinship, politics, economics, science, and religion – the hallmark of ‘modernity’ – in fact bleed into each other” (p. 208). In this way Blood Work makes a brilliant and original contribution to a growing set of ethnographies that have explored the work that goes on in technoscience laboratories, insisting that we “rehumanize” our study of such sites as places where career hopes, family dreams and everyday life circumstances are constantly reshaped.","PeriodicalId":34948,"journal":{"name":"Asian anthropology","volume":"22 1","pages":"78 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Asian anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2022.2123087","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
life of lab workers interlaced with four studies of the “public life of blood” based on readings of newspaper reporting on national blood donation programmes, laboratory life, elections, and more. For Carsten this interlacing of media analyses with laboratory ethnography allows her “to calibrate the material in the ethnographic chapters [in order to] complement and broaden themes in the ethnography” (p. 27). It is this juxtaposition which allows Carsten to innovatively show how “medical lab technologists, lab technicians, receptionists, lab managers, and nurses (as well as donors and patients) are directly and indirectly informed by publicity about blood donation, health scares, stories about organ donation, or hospitals that appear in the media, by the ways these are picked up by members of the public who are also potential donors” (p. 27). As an example, Carsten shows how news coverage of blood drives allows blood donation to function as a “symbolic vector” linking matters of health, the family, selfless giving, and a “spirit of Malaysia.” She then goes on to ethnographically trace the bureaucratic forms that are filled out and the various screening tests that potential donors must undergo in blood banks, showing how “histories of relatedness and moral, medical, and other categories penetrate each other and are inseparably entangled within acts of blood donation [such that] donors can equally be construed as citizens of an ethnically plural nation” (pp. 71, 73). In recent decades, we have seen ethnographers develop novel analytical and methodological strategies that allow for ways of locating intimate experiences, such as working in a laboratory carrying out blood work in Penang, within processes that operate at another scale, such as nation-building and modernization that take shape through policy processes, media coverage, and governmental programmes. Such approaches have been described by Escobar as “institutional ethnography,” by Marcus as “multi-sited ethnography,” by Feldman as “non-local ethnography,” and by Wahlberg as “assemblage ethnography,” among scholars’ recently coined terms. Carsten has innovatively woven different scales together ethnographically, and in doing so has shown us how “a close examination of seemingly routine and understated practices, and the lives of those who enact them, has revealed how the supposedly separate domains of kinship, politics, economics, science, and religion – the hallmark of ‘modernity’ – in fact bleed into each other” (p. 208). In this way Blood Work makes a brilliant and original contribution to a growing set of ethnographies that have explored the work that goes on in technoscience laboratories, insisting that we “rehumanize” our study of such sites as places where career hopes, family dreams and everyday life circumstances are constantly reshaped.
期刊介绍:
Asian Anthropology seeks to bring interesting and exciting new anthropological research on Asia to a global audience. Until recently, anthropologists writing on a range of Asian topics in English but seeking a global audience have had to depend largely on Western-based journals to publish their works. Given the increasing number of indigenous anthropologists and anthropologists based in Asia, as well as the increasing interest in Asia among anthropologists everywhere, it is important to have an anthropology journal that is refereed on a global basis but that is editorially Asian-based. Asian Anthropology is editorially based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, but welcomes contributions from anthropologists and anthropology-related scholars throughout the world with an interest in Asia, especially East Asia as well as Southeast and South Asia. While the language of the journal is English, we also seek original works translated into English, which will facilitate greater participation and scholarly exchange. The journal will provide a forum for anthropologists working on Asia, in the broadest sense of the term "Asia". We seek your general support through submissions, subscriptions, and comments.