Joan Fujimura
Professor of Sociology
7101 Sewell Social Sciences
(608) 265-2724
fujimura@ssc.wisc.edu
Office Hours:
W 2-4 (Fall'09)
Research Interest Statement
Fujimura’s current ethnographic research explores the processes through which different notions of population affect how biomedical researchers identify and catalogue human genetic variation. Her work has helped chart the ways in which concepts of race, ethnicity and ancestry intersect in these disease genomics projects. Over the past two and a half years, Fujimura has led an interdisciplinary team based at UW-Madison in the collection and analysis of data from two biomedical laboratory sites. One of these sites primarily recruits human subjects for DNA samples, while the other primarily genotypes DNA samples and has developed computational technologies to statistically analyze this data. Recent findings arising out of this study, focusing on human genetics and the use of concepts of race and ancestry, work organization in large genomic studies, and the impact of new genetic technologies, have been presented at numerous conferences and are now appearing in leading journals.
Other areas of research interest include: Sociology of Biomedicine, Genomics and Society, and Biotechnology and Society
Selected Publications:
Calculating life? A sociological perspective on systems biology. EMBO reports 10:S46-S49. (2009) (Joint with Jane Calvert)
Special Issue on Race, Genomics, and Biomedicine. Social Studies of
Science 38/5 (October 2008). (Joint with Troy Duster.)
Race, Genetics, and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence." Introduction to the special issue on "Race, Human Genomics, and Biomedicine." Social Studies of Science 38/5 (October 2008) 643–656. (Joint with Troy Duster and Ramya Rajagopalan.)
The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing. Science 318 (19 October 2007): 399-400.
"'Sex Genes': A Critical Socio-Material Approach to the Politics and Molecular Genetics of Sex Determination." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2006, vol. 32, no. 1.
Fujimura, Joan H. 2005.
Postgenomic futures: translations across the machine-nature border in systems biology. New Genetics and Society 24(2): 195-225.
"Future Imaginaries: Genome Scientists as Socio-Cultural Entrepreneurs." In A. Goodman, D. Heath, S. Lindee (eds.), Genetic Nature/Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two Culture Divide. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, pp. 176-199.
"The Practices and Politics of Producing Meaning in the Human Genome Project," Sociology of Science Yearbook, Vol. 21, no. 1 (1999): 49-87.
Fujimura, Joan H. 1998. Authorizing Knowledge in Science and Anthropology. American Anthropologist, New Series 100(2): 347-360
Fujimura, Joan H. 1987. Constructing 'Do-Able' Problems in Cancer Research: Articulating Alignment. Social Studies of Science 17(2): 257-293.
| Exploring Concepts of Population in Human Genetic Variation Studies |
CDE Research Theme Working Groups
Health and Mortality