Resisting bodies: The practices and politics of the immune system

Knowledge of the immune system, what it consists of and how it works, is constantly changing in the life sciences. While the immune system is often thought of as intrinsically human, a central part of immunological knowledge production has been and is about comparing across species. Further, zoonotic diseases increasingly challenge immunological relations between humans, animals, and natural environments. Last, immunological knowledge about bodies' resistance to disease is increasingly seen as crucial to ensure innovations in cancer treatment and treatment of chronic diseases, vaccine development, and the development of a sustainable bioeconomy around aquaculture. ResBod aims to study the different ways in which knowledge about the immune system is produced and how immunological knowledge is taken up, disputed and/or managed in specific political and cultural contexts. By unique empirical studies of immunological research, immunotherapy, and vaccine development, ResBod will contribute to indepth understanding of current and historical issues related to the immune system. A key contribution from ResBod is to develop new perspectives and methods that can help to describe and analyze the more-than-human condition of scientific and political practices aimed at ensuring health and resistance to disease.

The immune system, what it consists of and how it works, has become a key concern in life science research that aim to develop medical innovations for distinctly different health issues. For instance, knowledge of the immune system is regarded as vital for securing innovations in cancer treatment and the treatment of chronic diseases, vaccine development and the sustainable development of bioeconomies such as aquaculture. Common to these different ways of engaging with the immune system is that developing knowledge of how it works, how it resists, and how to protect it, involves understanding and managing the relationship between human bodies and non-human organisms. The primary objective of ResBod is to understand current and past challenges in the life sciences and politics of managing human and animal health, and ecological sustainability through immunological paradigms. Through unique empirical studies of comparative immunology, translational medicine, vaccine innovations and licensing practices, ResBod aims to study how the immune system is approached and worked upon in science - in the lab, field and in communication practices, and how immunological knowledge and challenges are taken up and contested in national and global political contexts. The project builds upon and further develop analytical approaches and tools to study science in action and the relationship between science, society and politics through a more-than-human framework and material-semiotics. This involves studying how nonhumans are engaged with and shape immunological practices and knowledge of humans and nonhuman animals and the relationship between different species. Studies of the immune system and immunology have focussed mainly on the metaphorical work in immunology and how it often mimics or work as frameworks for understanding societal and political relations. Significantly less attention has been paid to situated scientific practices and rhetorics and how knowledge of the immune system is constantly being challenged by nonhuman animals as well as in the public. Hence, these approaches contribute to enhanced understanding of current and historical issues related to the immune system and how immunological knowledge affects our understanding of ourselves and human relations with the more-than-human.