Papers by Beth Greenhough
Brill Academic Publishers, 2020
This paper examines discourses around "volunteering" in animal research. Through a qual... more This paper examines discourses around "volunteering" in animal research. Through a qualitative textual analysis of the scientific literature using animals in behavioral and psychological research, we demonstrate that "voluntary" and related terms are used by scientists in a variety of distinct ways, which carry a range of ethical and political connotations. While any reference to volunteering might be assumed to imply free, unconstrained, and unpaid participation in an activity, in the animal research literature the term is often used simply to signal a lack of physical restraint, even though other human-imposed constraints are at play. In conclusion, while truly voluntary behavior may be impossible, we nevertheless argue that there is a case for seeing use of the language of volunteering as an ethical or political move in which scientists aim to highlight a goal of minimizing human control, promoting animal welfare, or representing their research as ethically acceptable
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2021
Drawing on insights from qualitative social science research, this paper aims to prompt reflectio... more Drawing on insights from qualitative social science research, this paper aims to prompt reflection on social, ethical and regulatory challenges faced by scientists undertaking invasive animal research in the field and propose ways of addressing these challenges to promote good care for animals and environments. In particular, we explore challenges relating to the management of (i) relationships with publics and stakeholders, who may be present at field sites or crucial to research success; (ii) ethical considerations not present in the laboratory, such as the impacts of research on populations and ecosystems; (iii) working under an array of regulations, which may operate in accordance with competing ethical principles or objectives; and (iv) relationships with regulators (especially vets), which may involve disagreements over ethics and expertise, especially because regulators may be more accustomed to overseeing research in the laboratory than the field. We argue that flexibility—a...
Animals, 2020
Research involving animals that occurs outside the laboratory raises an array of unique challenge... more Research involving animals that occurs outside the laboratory raises an array of unique challenges. With regard to UK legislation, however, it receives only limited attention in terms of official guidelines, support, and statistics, which are unsurprisingly orientated towards the laboratory environment in which the majority of animal research takes place. In September 2019, four social scientists from the Animal Research Nexus program gathered together a group of 13 experts to discuss nonlaboratory research under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A(SP)A) of 1986 (mirroring European Union (EU) Directive 2010/63/EU), which is the primary mechanism for regulating animal research in the UK. Such nonlaboratory research under the A(SP)A often occurs at Places Other than Licensed Establishments (POLEs). The primary objective of the workshop was to assemble a diverse group with experience across a variety of POLEs (e.g., wildlife field sites, farms, fisheries, veterinary clinics, zoo...
People and Nature, 2020
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Palgrave Communications, 2020
The human microbiome is an important emergent area of cross, multi and transdisciplinary study. T... more The human microbiome is an important emergent area of cross, multi and transdisciplinary study. The complexity of this topic leads to conflicting narratives and regulatory challenges. It raises questions about the benefits of its commercialisation and drives debates about alternative models for engaging with its publics, patients and other potential beneficiaries. The social sciences and the humanities have begun to explore the microbiome as an object of empirical study and as an opportunity for theoretical innovation. They can play an important role in facilitating the development of research that is socially relevant, that incorporates cultural norms and expectations around microbes and that investigates how social and biological lives intersect. This is a propitious moment to establish lines of collaboration in the study of the microbiome that incorporate the concerns and capabilities of the social sciences and the humanities together with those of the natural sciences and releva...
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2018
Posthumanism has challenged the social sciences and humanities to rethink anthopocentricism withi... more Posthumanism has challenged the social sciences and humanities to rethink anthopocentricism within the cultures and societies they study and to take account of more-than-human agencies and perspectives. This poses key methodological challenges, including a tendency for animal geographies to focus very much on the human side of human–animal relations and to fail to acknowledge animals as embodied, lively, articulate political subjects. In this paper, we draw on recent ethnographic work, observing and participating in the care of research animals and interviewing the animal technologists, to contribute to the understandings of life within the animal house. In so doing, the paper makes three key arguments. Firstly, that studying how animal technologists perform everyday care and make sense of their relationships with animals offers useful insights into the specific skills, expertise and relationships required in order to study human–animal relations. Secondly, that animal technologists...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2019
Recent geographical scholarship has drawn attention to the ways in which the practice of public h... more Recent geographical scholarship has drawn attention to the ways in which the practice of public health constructs particular bodies and populations as 'risky'. From a biopolitical perspective this status of being 'at risk' offers the basis for an emergent biosociality; groups brought together by a shared vulnerability to disease, which then forms the basis for both state-led public health interventions and community driven advocacy and support. Critics, however, suggest a focus on biosociality can act to obscure other dimensions of individual and community identity, dimensions that can play a key role in determining both health status and the success of healthcare interventions. This paper draws together insights from geography, anthropology and sociology with empirical evidence from focus groups collected as part of an evaluation of a breast cancer awareness DVD distributed in the London borough of Hackney. We explore the extent to which the DVD, by defining a specific group (black women aged 25-50) as being at increased risk of developing more severe forms of breast cancer at a younger age, led to the formation of a biosocial community. Themes emerging from the analysis of focus group transcripts present a complex picture. At times our participants clearly aligned themselves with this biosocial collective, drawing on a shared Black political identity, assumptions of a common African genetic heritage, experiences of diaspora and perceived similarities in lifestyles and bodily norms. At other times, however, this shared sense of belonging fragmented in light of perceived differences in culture, lifestyle and community which nuanced both participants' sense of being 'at risk' and how they might seek to manage (or not) that risk. Our findings suggest that biosociality is a fragile and heterogeneous accomplishment, with implications for the way we practice medical and social science research, design community-targeted public health interventions and conceptualise risk.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2019
Recent rapid increases in the capability and affordability of DNA sequencing have enabled scienti... more Recent rapid increases in the capability and affordability of DNA sequencing have enabled scientists to map the microbiome and to identify its associations with a range of health conditions. Concerns are growing that missing microbes might be behind the current rise in inflammatory disease. Microbial absence and dysbiosis have been linked to a range of hygiene practices, fuelling popular anxiety and confusion about being both too clean and the risk of superbugs. A growing number of microbiology projects allow some publics to engage with DNA sequencing, and enable DIY experiments in microbiome management. Advocates promote this as the democratisation of sequencing. This paper outlines a new methodology for making the microbiome public, and explores the potential of thinking with microbes for social science research. It reports on an interdisciplinary research project, in which a small number of households in Oxford designed and conducted repeated experiments on their kitchen microbiome. These experiments explored the composition of the microbiome and the effects of different hygiene practices. The analysis identifies two challenges of public microbiome research: the mismatch between a vernacular species ontology and the ecological understanding of the microbiome, and the difficulties posed by scientific uncertainty. The reported methodology was able to engage publics in the design and interpretation of experiments, and to work with the surprises generated by open research. Thinking with microbes as ecologies revealed the tensions between an antibiotic and a probiotic approach to domestic hygiene. Public microbiome research needs new metaphors and visualisation tools, and an awareness of the political economic and epistemic barriers that will configure the promised democratisation of sequencing. The conclusion calls for further interdisciplinary and participatory microbiome research to guide the emergence of this new technology.
Social science & medicine (1982), Dec 1, 2017
This paper is based upon findings from the qualitative element of a mixed-methods study on the re... more This paper is based upon findings from the qualitative element of a mixed-methods study on the response of Black women aged 25-50 to a public health intervention related to breast cancer. The focus groups were conducted in the London Borough of Hackney, UK between 2013 and 2016, and were part of an evaluation of the effectiveness of a breast awareness DVD. While the content of the DVD was generally well-received by the participants, the focus group discussions revealed a complex and, at times, contradictory response to the women's construction as an 'at risk' community. As the paper highlights, for many of the women, breast cancer remains a disease of whiteness and the information provided in the DVD prompted a range of emotional responses; from anxiety and fear to a desire to become more knowledgeable and active in the promotion of self-care. As the paper argues, of particular importance to the women was the need to feel a much stronger emotional connection to the infor...
Health Geographies, 2017
Health Geographies: A Critical Introduction explores health and biomedical topics from a range of... more Health Geographies: A Critical Introduction explores health and biomedical topics from a range of critical geographic perspectives. Building on the field’s past engagement with social theory it extends the focus of health geography into new areas of enquiry. •Introduces key topics in health geography through clear and engaging examples and case studies drawn from around the world •Incorporates multi-disciplinary perspectives and approaches applied in the field of health geography •Identifies both health and biomedical issues as a central area of concern for critically oriented health geographers •Features material that is alert to questions of global scale and difference, and sensitive to the political and economic as well sociocultural aspects of health •Provides extensive pedagogic materials within the text and guidance for further study
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2006
Towards a geography of bodily biotechnologies`H ere at last, at the borders of the body, the inse... more Towards a geography of bodily biotechnologies`H ere at last, at the borders of the body, the inseparable relation between science and economic development is revealed at its most naked. [...] Biotechnology offers a vehicle for understanding the construction of a universal nature, and offers too a particular challenge to realign nature and the individual. The dualism collapses as we recognise that we are both of nature and yet on the verge of reshaping our own biologyönature is placed within ourselves rather than vice versa.'' Katz and Kirby (1991, page 264) Introduction: geography/biotechnology Since Katz and Kirby (1991) noted the challenge biotechnology presented to existing understandings of the relationship between an externalised nature and the human individual, geographers have increasingly begun to venture into the complex and fascinating spaces mapped out by advances in the life sciences. The political, economic, cultural, and theoretical implications of hybrid entities, such as genetically modified (GM) foods, transgenetic organisms, and genetic medicine, have attracted much critical attention from geographers, not least because they question perceived boundaries between nature and culture, self and world, human and nonhuman that are echoed by the human^physical divide within the geographical discipline itself. This has led to calls for a new kind of biogeography that would put`life back into the discipline' (Spencer and Whatmore, 2001; Whatmore, 1999) and which would be`proactive rather than reactive' (Castree, 1999) when faced with opportunities to shape the political and social context of newly emerging biotechnologies. As Bridge et al (2003, page 165) noted,``doing biotechnology''``raise[s] new questions and analytical opportunities for geography that require the creation of new modes of inquiry, [the] development of alternative theoretical frameworks, or experimentation with creative practice''. Geographers, among others, have been developing critical analytical skills supported by novel theoretical and methodological directions to address some of the profound challenges that the life sciences make both to society generally and to the skills of social scientists specifically. There are an increasing number of examples of geographers and other social scientists writing critically on developments in and implications of the biotechnology industry, generating the basis for rich and diverse geographies of biotechnology. These range from accounts in science studies, which highlight how biotechnological spaces take on their own distinct geographies (M'Charek, 2005) to studies by urban geographers that demonstrate how biotechnology is developing its own distinct regions and clusters (Leibovitz, 2004). Political^economic analyses highlight the struggles between the corporate world, the state, and the citizen which arise out of attempts to commercialise biodiversity (
Palgrave Communications, 2018
Decades of active public health messaging about the dangers of pathogenic microbes has led to a W... more Decades of active public health messaging about the dangers of pathogenic microbes has led to a Western society dominated by an antibiotic worldview; however recent scientific and social interest in the microbiome suggests an emerging counter-current of more probiotic sentiments. Such stirrings are supported by cultural curiosity around the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, or the idea it is possible to be ‘too clean’ and a certain amount of microbial exposure is essential for health. These trends resonate with the ways in which scientists too have adopted a more ‘ecological’ perspective on the microbiome. Advances in sequencing technologies and decreasing costs have allowed researchers to more rapidly explore the abundance and diversity of microbial life. This paper seeks to expand on such probiotic tendencies by proposing an interdisciplinary methodology researchers might use to generate more-than-antibiotic relations between lay participants and their domestic microbiome. The paper draws on ...
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, 2014
Bioscience, in the broadest sense, refers to the appliance of scientific theories and research me... more Bioscience, in the broadest sense, refers to the appliance of scientific theories and research methods to the study of life and living beings. Geographies of bioscience focus on how bioscience is transforming nature–society relations. Topics range from exploring the impact of bioscience in agriculture to a more recent concern with biomedicine and its impact on health and society. Geographers have studied bioprospecting and the global pharmaceutical sector; the production and global circulation of bodily commodities, patients, and medical professionals; the impact of biomedicine on people's day-to-day lives; and inequalities in access to the resources bioscience provides. Keywords: biological; geography; genetics; health; pharmaceuticals
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Papers by Beth Greenhough