Purity and interest: On relational work and epistemic value in the biomedical sciences

The biosciences are sometimes 'activated and fashioned in articulation with neoliberal, entrepreneurial modes of participation', but also, in simultaneous contrast, assembled as an echo of Merton's CUDOS norms. This chapter asks how actors establish what counts as good and valuable biomedical science, and how they, in practice, establish what are acceptable relations between science and industry. The chapter shows how the studied actors use two main strategies to uphold a difference between science and industry, and proposes to describe these strategies as two different modes of purification: temporal purification and organizational purification. By introducing modes of purification the chapter highlights the multiplicity of strategies that are utilized to fashion acceptable science–industry relations.

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Lee, Francis. 2015. "Purity and interest: On relational work and epistemic value in the biomedical sciences." In Value Practices in the Life Sciences and Medicine, edited by Isabelle Dussauge, Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, and Francis Lee, 207-223. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689583.003.0011