Mike Fortun – författare

Part detective story, part expose, and part travelogue, "Promising Genomics" investigates one of the signature biotech stories of our time and, in so doing, opens a window onto the high-speed, high-tech, and high-finance world of genome science. In a luminous account, Mike Fortun investigates how deCODE Genetics, in Iceland, became one of the wealthiest companies of its kind, as well as one of the most scandalous, with its plan to use the genes and medical records of the entire Icelandic population for scientific research. Delving into the poetry of W. H. Auden, the novels of Halldor Laxness, and the perils of Keiko the killer whale, Fortun maps the contemporary genomics landscape at a time when we must begin to ask questions about what "life" is made of in the age of DNA, databases, and derivatives trading.

In Genomics with Care Mike Fortun presents an experimental ethnography of contemporary genomics, analyzing science as a complex amalgam of cognition and affect, formal logics and tacit knowledge, statistics, and ethics. Fortun examines genomics in terms of care-a dense composite of affective and cognitive forces that drive scientists and the relations they form with their objects of research, data, knowledge, and community. Reading genomics with care shows how each resists definition yet is so entangled as to become indistinguishable. Fortun analyzes four patterns of genomic care-curation, scrupulousness, solicitude, and friendship-seen in the conceptual, technological, social, and methodological changes that transpired as the genetics of the 1980s became the genomics of the 1990s, and then the “post-genomics” of the 2000s. By tracing the dense patterns made where care binds to science, Fortun shows how these patterns mark where scientists are driven to encounter structural double binds that are impossible to resolve, and yet are where scientific change and creativity occur.

In Genomics with Care Mike Fortun presents an experimental ethnography of contemporary genomics, analyzing science as a complex amalgam of cognition and affect, formal logics and tacit knowledge, statistics, and ethics. Fortun examines genomics in terms of care-a dense composite of affective and cognitive forces that drive scientists and the relations they form with their objects of research, data, knowledge, and community. Reading genomics with care shows how each resists definition yet is so entangled as to become indistinguishable. Fortun analyzes four patterns of genomic care-curation, scrupulousness, solicitude, and friendship-seen in the conceptual, technological, social, and methodological changes that transpired as the genetics of the 1980s became the genomics of the 1990s, and then the “post-genomics” of the 2000s. By tracing the dense patterns made where care binds to science, Fortun shows how these patterns mark where scientists are driven to encounter structural double binds that are impossible to resolve, and yet are where scientific change and creativity occur.

In Genomics with Care Mike Fortun presents an experimental ethnography of contemporary genomics, analyzing science as a complex amalgam of cognition and affect, formal logics and tacit knowledge, statistics, and ethics. Fortun examines genomics in terms of care—a dense composite of affective and cognitive forces that drive scientists and the relations they form with their objects of research, data, knowledge, and community. Reading genomics with care shows how each resists definition yet is so entangled as to become indistinguishable. Fortun analyzes four patterns of genomic care—curation, scrupulousness, solicitude, and friendship—seen in the conceptual, technological, social, and methodological changes that transpired as the genetics of the 1980s became the genomics of the 1990s, and then the “post-genomics” of the 2000s. By tracing the dense patterns made where care binds to science, Fortun shows how these patterns mark where scientists are driven to encounter structural double binds that are impossible to resolve, and yet are where scientific change and creativity occur.

For more than two decades, anthropologists have wrestled with new digital technologies and their impacts on how their data are collected, managed, and ultimately presented. Anthropological Data in the Digital Age compiles a range of academics in anthropology and the information sciences, archivists, and librarians to offer in-depth discussions of the issues raised by digital scholarship. The volume covers the technical aspects of data management—retrieval, metadata, dissemination, presentation, and preservation—while at once engaging with case studies written by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists returning from the field to grapple with the implications of producing data digitally. Concluding with thoughts on the new considerations and ethics of digital data, Anthropological Data in the Digital Age is a multi-faceted meditation on anthropological practice in a technologically mediated world.

For more than two decades, anthropologists have wrestled with new digital technologies and their impacts on how their data are collected, managed, and ultimately presented. Anthropological Data in the Digital Age compiles a range of academics in anthropology and the information sciences, archivists, and librarians to offer in-depth discussions of the issues raised by digital scholarship. The volume covers the technical aspects of data management—retrieval, metadata, dissemination, presentation, and preservation—while at once engaging with case studies written by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists returning from the field to grapple with the implications of producing data digitally. Concluding with thoughts on the new considerations and ethics of digital data, Anthropological Data in the Digital Age is a multi-faceted meditation on anthropological practice in a technologically mediated world.