Fragile Castles The Paradox of Research Politics, Scientific Progress, and the Mutation of Medical Knowledge英文电子书.pdf

IMAN ROUSHDY-HAMMADY FRAGILE CASTLES: THE PARADOX OF RESEARCH POLITICS, SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS, AND THE MUTATION OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE ABSTRACT. This paper is based on fieldwork done from 1996–1999 in different loca- tions among village communities from Central Anatolia afflicted with the deadly malig- nancy of mesothelioma. Medical research has long established the relationship between mesothelioma and the environment; yet in earlier work correlations deduced through my genealogies provide evidence of a possible genetic cofactor causing these cancer deaths. This paper illustrates how medical research becomes an arena for local and global political interests and how the disruption of the doctor–cancer patient relationship impedes medical research. Methods include illness and clinical narratives, kinship charts and pedigrees, and observation of involved doctors and patients in multiple sites and geographical locations. Under focus are the anthropologist’s involvement in global biomedical research and her interconnectedness with its political events. KEY WORDS: cancer, doctor–cancer patient relationship, Europe, local–global research politics, personal experience and anthropologist’s subjectivity, Turkey, United States This paper explores the effects of research politics on the process of scientific discoveries in the field of cancer research. It is told from the perspective of the anthropologist, who was not only carrying out ethnographic research, but also participating in medical field research led by Turkish researchers, and involved in the international exchange among collaborating scientists from Europe and the United States with Turkish scientists. Using the anthropologist’s personal experience and narrative, amalgamated with interlacing research methods that include cancer and clinical narratives, kinship analysis to c