Description
Book SynopsisIn Research as Development, Salla Sariola and Bob Simpson show how international collaboration operates in a setting that is typically portrayed as resource-poor and scientifically lagging. Based on their long-term fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Sariola and Simpson bring into clear ethnographic focus the ways international scientific collaborations feature prominently in the pursuit of global health in which research operates as development and not merely for it.
The authors follow the design, inception, and practice of two clinical trials: one a global health charity funded trial and the other a pharmaceutical industry-sponsored trial. Research as Development situates these two trials within their historical, political and cultural contexts and thus counters the idea that local actors are merely passive recipients of new technical and scientific rationalities.
While social studies of clinical trials are beginning to be an established niche in academic writing, Rese
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Ethnographic inquiry reveals that international clinical research and collaboration engages many stakeholders at multiple levels of society. The implications of these multilevel research interactions are changes in culture, technological innovation, and expertise that impacts national development, particularly in health and economics. The derived ethnographic conclusions, while important, are not earth-shattering.
* Choice *
In sum, this is a very inspiring book that incites us to think in novel ways about the crucial theme of ethics in global bio- and inter-medical collaboration. It will be highly relevant to scholars in both social and medical sciences and accessible to students.
* Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
