Under the direction of Professor Donna Haraway, Mr. Joseph Dumit is producing an ethnographic study and contemporary history of positron emission tomography (PET) functional brain imaging. He is combining intensive archival work and the collection of primary oral histories with participant observation of PET centers and popular culture content analysis. He is focusing on interdisciplinary interactions and the ways in which popular theories of human nature and categories of persons interact with the experimental production of scientific knowledge. His thesis is that functional brain imaging, through PET and other techniques, is actively helping to redefine our notions of the interdisciplinary negotiations involved in producing, distributing, and interpreting functional images of living human brains. This study offers a unique and much-needed contribution to understanding the implications of the ongoing "biologization" of human nature in science, medicine, popular theories, and in the legal system. A second objective is to make available to other researchers a basic history of PET scanning by collecting primary sources and documents and organizing a qualitative index to these materials. These will be stored in archives and made available electronically.
