Goldsmiths - University of London

Bonaccorso, Dr Monica M.E. Laurea MPhil PhD

Biography

I obtained my PhD in Social Anthropology at King’s College, Cambridge University. I also hold a Laurea in Philosophy with an emphasis in Psychology and Bioethics from the University of Studies of Milan (Italy). I joined the department following a position as Wellcome Trust Fellow and Affiliated Lecturer at Cambridge University, and more recently as Lecturer at Durham University. Before moving to the UK, I also trained in Journalism, and worked for the Italian national press for several years writing on science, culture and society.

Research interests

I am interested in the national/transnational production, representation and communication of new scientific/medical knowledge and the role that such exercises play in encouraging narratives in other arenas of cultural and social life (e.g. kinship, gender, ethics and ‘rights’). I firstly carried out fieldwork in Italy, in clinics of assisted conception, amongst clinicians and couples (heterosexual, lesbian and gay) differently engaging in programmes of gamete donation. I then carried out fieldwork in the UK, on the science media and museums as well as interest groups engaging with controversial advances in new genetics/genomics. I am now working in East Africa, Kenya, on health/science media-led initiatives, health NGOs and transnational scientific research organisations generating and promoting biomedical knowledge on HIV/AIDS and Malaria. In collaboration with European partners I am also working on a new project on ‘converging technologies’ in genetics and neuroscience.

Recent Research Projects

• 'Cultures of New Genetics: An Exploration of Shared Idioms in the Media, Interests Groups and Science Museums in the UK' (Wellcome Trust, 2002-2007)

• 'With the Public in Mind: Ethnographic Investigations of Medical Science and Media in Kenya' (Wellcome Trust, 2007-2011)

• 'HealthGovMatters: A Social Science and Ethnographic Study of Patient and Professional Involvement in, and Representations of, the Governance of Health and Medical Knowledge Production' (EC FP7 Science in Society Programme 2009-2012) 

Selected publications

“Conceiving Kinship provides intriguing and important insights into a period of rapid and unregulated development in assisted conception in Italy in the late 1990s. The book draws us into detailed and sensitive accounts of couples' intentions, assumptions and actions during a time of shifting expectations about parenthood and the ways that one might become a parent. Rich interview and conversational material is gathered from heterosexual as well as homosexual couples in relation to a wide range of assisted conception scenarios. This detailed ethnographic fieldwork, combined with a sustained analytical interrogation, makes for a significant contribution to the complex mosaic of practices and values which lie beneath the Euro-American kinship label. It is one which will become an important reference point for future debates about assisted conception in Europe and beyond.”

Robert Simpson, Reader, University of Durham

http://www.berghahnbooks.com/