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Silja
Samerski (*1970)
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My
research focuses on
the social and cultural
consequences of professional
counseling. Today every
conceivable life situation
presents a potential
need for counseling,
from jobs and marriage
to death and grief.
Professional guidance
has advanced in the
past fifty years to
become one of the most
important social technologies.
In the twentieth century,
knowledge and competencies,
to be valuable, had
to be acquired under
the technical supervision
of experts and evaluated
by their scientific
standards. In the twenty-first
century, not only knowledge
and skills, but also
deliberation is being
refashioned as a scientific
object. Freedom, choice
and autonomy are so
re-defined that to be
appropriately exercised
they require scientific
inputs and guidance
services. My research
on the transformation
of citizens into expert-
and information-dependent
clients ties into the
results of social science
studies that analyze
the emergence of a new
subjectivity in an epoch
of risk-calculation
and bio-political self-governance.
During
the last seven years
my studies have been
guided by the collaboration
of an interdisciplinary
circle of scholars (economists,
medieval historians,
musicologists, etc.)
who dedicate themselves
to the analysis of modern
myths: that the consumption
of medicine leads to
health; that the internalization
of information is knowledge;
or that instructed decision-making
enhances autonomy. With
Ivan Illich as our mentor
we met several times
a year in different
cities and countries
(e.g. State College-PA,
Cuernavaca-Mexico, Florence-Italy,
Oakland-CA) in order
to pursue our joint
effort of unraveling
the socio-genesis of
modern certainties.
Currently, my main collaborators
are Prof. Sajay Samuel
(Accounting, PSU) with
whom I study the perversion
of autonomy by managerial
decision-making, and
Prof. Barbara Duden
(Sociology, University
of Hannover) with whom
I investigate how scientific
concepts undermine somatic
autoception.
Academic
career: My training
as a "hedge sitter"
In
order to study the social
and cultural consequences
of professional counseling,
I have to be aware of
the heterogeneity between
scientific concepts
and their everyday meaning.
Trained as both a geneticist
and a social scientist
I am well placed to
analyze the effects
of scientific terms
in ordinary parlance.
As a natural scientist,
I know about the limited
denotations of a technical
term; and as a social
scientist I study the
innumerable connotations
of the same term when
it enters everyday conversations
such as medical consultations
or political debates.
Moving between genetics
and social science,
I see myself as a "hedge-sitter"
(Zaunreiterin). Sitting
on the fence, with my
left ear I try to stay
attuned to the index
of "The Journal
of Molecular Biology"
and "Genetics";
and with my right ear
I try to figure out
what people mean, feel
and fear when they use
genetic critters.
Between
1989 and 1996, I studied
biology and philosophy
at the University of
Tübingen and earned
my diploma in the department
of human genetics with
a thesis in population
biology. While working
on the genetic makeup
of Madagascar monkeys,
I became aware of the
ambiguity of technical
terminology when it
migrates from the laboratory.
The works of the natural
scientist Ludwik Fleck
and the philologist
Uwe Pörksen made
me understand that terms
such as "mutation"
or "genotype"
have a precise denotation
for biologists, but
as part of ordinary
conversations are loaded
with everyday meaning
and become powerless
to denote anything.
This insight led me
to examine the havoc
such escapees from laboratory
slang wreak in the everyday
world. In addition to
my philosophical studies
on the theory and history
of science I studied
the heterogeneity of
scientific terminology
and every day language.
Together
with Ivan Illich, Barbara
Duden and other colleagues
I spent two months at
the STS-program at Penn
State University in
summer 1996 and began
to collaborate with
Prof. Sajay Samuel (Accounting)
on the problem of managerial
decision-making in everyday
life. Prof. Carl Mitcham
invited me to spend
two more months at the
STS-program in summer
1997 in order to present
my research project
on genetic counseling
and to review the U.S.
literature on the social
aspects of human genetics.
From
1997 to 2000 I wrote
my PhD in Sociology
at the University of
Bremen with the historian
Barbara Duden as my
advisor. I took genetic
counseling as a paradigm
for the popularization
of genetic concepts
and, on the basis of
thirty observed and
recorded prenatal counseling
sessions, I analyzed
the new kind of decision
that the counselee is
urged to make. In these
encounters a physician
embeds textbook information
and statistical tables
in an exhortation that
challenges his pregnant
client to choose between
different prenatal test
options, basing her
decision on the information
he has delivered. Inevitably,
the demand to project
such misplaced concreteness
into the happening in
her belly pushes the
women into troubling
misapprehensions: The
geneticist suggests
that client conceive
of the being who will
become her kin as a
risk profile, a faceless
member of various risk
classes. Because the
pregnant woman assumes
that the counselor talks
about her person, a
statistical risk estimating
no more than a frequency
in a population turns
into a personal menace
for her.
My
thesis was published
under the title, Die
verrechnete Hoffnung.
Von der selbstbestimmten
Entscheidung durch genetische
Beratung ("The
mathematization of hope.
On autonomous decision-making
through genetic counseling").
It challenges the basic
assumptions of studies
on prenatal counseling
which analyze the new
decisions pregnant women
are urged to make as
admittedly ambiguous,
but inevitable, and
therefore stress the
importance of information
and free choice. Since
counseling is usually
understood and promoted
as a means to empower
pregnant women, my analysis
of the symbolic effects
of instructed decision-making
provoked lively debates
among feminist academics
as well as midwives,
women's health activists
and prenatal counselors
in Germany.
Current
research project
Since
summer 2002 I have been
collaborating with Barbara
Duden and Ruth Stützle,
a social anthropologist,
on a research project
Das Alltags-Gen (The
"pop-gene")
funded by the Bundesministerium
für Bildung und
Forschung (the German
Ministry for Education
and Research). On the
basis of interviews,
transcripts of genetic
counseling sessions
and the observation
of a national conference
on "good genes
- bad genes," we
study the meanings and
connotations given to
the word "gene"
when it is used in everyday
conversations. It is
our hypothesis that
"gene-talk"
inevitably implies notions
about the substance
of the human, about
who and what you are
and therefore willy-nilly
transforms the person
who speaks. The results
of our research project
on the "reflexive
gene" and the gene
in common parlance will
be published in a monograph
within the next year.
Research
project after Fall 2004
At
the request of English-speaking
colleagues I would like
to summarize and update
my findings for a North
American audience.
After that, I intend
to take up a thread
from my dissertation
and for two years study
the history and the
symbolic effects of
taught self-determination,
that is, the re-definition
of "decision"
by counseling services.
With non-directiveness
as a basic rule and
aiming at enabling autonomous
decision-making, genetic
counseling is paradigmatic
for a fundamental shift
of the professional-client
relationship in the
medical service system:
The shift from "doctor
knows best" to
"patient decides
best." My project
will rest on three pillars:
First I would like to
trace back the history
of the managerial technique
of "decision-making"
in the twentieth century
that has shaped our
contemporary understanding
of "decision"
as synonymous with choosing
between pre-determined
options with probable
outcomes. Secondly,
I will analyze a historic
conundrum which has
not been given due attention:
the history of how the
feminist and patient
rights' movement fighting
the paternalism of the
"demigods in white"
unwittingly encouraged
the transformation of
citizens into "decision-makers,"
that is, into self-managers.
And thirdly, I will
broaden the scope of
my research and include
different kinds of counseling
services such as breast
cancer consultations,
family or investment
counseling to show that
educational services
mobilizing clients to
make their own decisions
and take responsibility
for the (probable) outcomes
are widespread and indicate
a fundamental shift
in the professional-client
relationship. I intend
to weave these three
threads together towards
a critique of taught
self-determination as
a perversion of autonomy.
Kontakt
pudel@uni-bremen.de
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