Uppsala universitet
TORA HOLMBERG
 

Earlier research

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Earlier research

I received a PhD in sociology in 2005. In my doctoral thesis Vetenskap på gränsen, I examine behaviour genetics from the perspective of cultural studies and the sociology of science, and investigate how results from twin- and animal studies become represented in media and in science. The aim of the project is to produce knowledge of how the polyphonic talk about genes in these arenas, together create certain conditions for how ”human behaviour” and, in the extension, ”human nature”, can possibly become constructed. Research that brings together behaviour and genetics is inherently interesting since it in practice challenges a number of established distinctions and boundaries, for example between nature and culture, nature and nurture, humans and animals and behaviour- and natural science. Behaviour genetics can therefore be called Science on the line(2005). In a post-doc position I have worked with a project in which I take the doctoral thesis project one step further, and investigate conditions for the nature/culture divide in a whole different scientific field. I investigate how prominent gender researchers in Sweden relate to the nature/culture divide in general and the distinction between sex/gender, biological/social, in particular. This project is accounted for in a report called Conversations of biology. Gender researchers talk about bodily matters (2007) and a book chapter (together with Fredrik Palm) entitled The body that speaks the gap (2009). In a joint project (Dilemmas with transgenic animals), ethnologist Malin Ideland and I explore how the production and research on transgenic animals is managed and authorized by actors involved in research and animal ethics committees. Again, questions concerning the nature/culture divide and its boundaries become essential to understand the negotiations going on in these arenas. This project, funded by the Swedish Research Council 2006-2008), is accounted for in numerous articles. From 2007-2009 I have also worked part-time at the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, as a programme coordinator for GenNa: Nature/Culture and Transgressive Encounters (www.genna.gender.uu.se). This programme aims at bringing together, under the umbrella of gender and science, scholars from the social sciences, humanities and the natural science. Moreover, my general research interests include science and technology studies (STS), cultural studies, the sociology of scientific knowledge, the sociology of human–animal relations, animal studies, discourse analysis, urban studies and feminist science studies.

 
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