Resisting bodies: The practices and politics of the immune system

Kunnskap om immunsystemet har blitt sentralt for å bekjempe smittsomme sykdommer blant mennesker og dyr. Økt forekomst av smittsomme sykdommer mellom mennesker og dyr, behovet for tryggere og mer effektive vaksiner, nye og mer effektive måter å lindre kreftsykdom, og sykdomsproblematikk i fiskeoppdrett er eksempler der immunologien har fått en fornyet relevans. I ResBod forsker vi på innovasjoner i immunologien og livsvitenskapen som er koblet opp til disse problemstillingene med et særskilt fokus på hvordan mennesker og dyr/menneskehelse og dyrehelse bindes sammen på ulike måter i ulike praksiser. Et viktig mål å bidra med ny empirisk kunnskap om dyr og mennesker i livsvitenskapen og forskerliv, og hvordan verdier skapes, forhandles og formidles. ResBod har også som et sentralt mål å utvikle perspektiver og tilnærminger i samfunnsvitenskapen for å inkludere mennesker og dyr i studier av vitenskap og politikk.

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.