Event Date
The Missing Swarm: Collective Entomological Inquiry in the Kilombero Valley
A talk by Javier Lezaun
Thursday, March 14 12-2pm
SSH 1246
Lunch will be served
Javier Lezaun is Associate Professor in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, and Governing Body Fellow at Kellogg College. Javier's research focuses on the intersection of science and politics. Most of his current work focuses on scientific and political change in the context of global health interventions, specifically those targeting mosquito-borne diseases. This work includes ethnographic investigations into the work of entomologists and the impact of urban mosquito control programmes, as well as research on the governance of transgenic and gene drive technologies for the suppression of insect vectors.
Javier is currently co-PI of the project Acting in an uncertain world: Mapping public health responses to the Zika epidemic in Brazil, in collaboration with colleagues at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). The project, funded by the British Council's Newton Fund, examines the evolution of public policy and scientific research in response to the outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil in 2015.
At InSIS Javier also directs the programme Changing Ecologies of Knowledge and Action (CEKA), which explores the potential of citizen science and DIY communities in tackling medical and environmental challenges. This includes experimenting with open hardware approaches for the development of laboratory equipment in low-income countries and other under-resourced research settings.
Between 2010 and 2014 Javier directed the programme BioProperty: Biomedical Research and the Future of Property Rights. Funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council, BioProperty explored patterns of exchange and appropriation in the contemporary life sciences. This line of work continues, with ongoing research on organizational transformations in malaria drug discovery, and policy work on the adoption of open source principles in pharmaceutical R&D.
In addition to his work on the life sciences and global health, Javier is involved in current research at InSIS on the potential role of geoengineering and negative emissions technologies to tackle climate change. This includes the development of new formats of consultation and deliberation on the acceptability of climate technologies (see here and here), part of a broader interest in the experimentalization of publics and political action.
Javier is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Social Studies of Science and Science as Culture. He also sits on the advisory boards of the journals Valuation Studies; Demonstrations: Journal for Experiments in Social Studies of Technology; Revista de Dialectologia y Tradiciones Populares; and Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society. He is also a member of the editorial collective for Somatosphere, an online platform exploring the intersections of anthropology and science and technology studies.
In addition to his responsibilities at InSIS, the School of Anthropology, and Kellogg College, Javier is a member of the Management Committee of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, a Research Associate at the LSE's Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, and an Associate Member of the Centre for Invention and Social Process at Goldsmiths, University of London.