Clare Williams
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3581747 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Clare Williams |
| PRENOMES | Clare |
| SOBRENOME | Williams |
| ASSINATURA | WILLIAMS C |
| AFILIAÇÕES | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6315-5534 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 47 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 585 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 46 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1938 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 16 |
The Covid-19 pandemic and methodological constraints
While sets of constraints have become normalised in research production, the COVID-19 pandemic mandated shifts in research ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies. The society-wide, real-time experiment of the pandemic lockdowns constructed a set of prefigurative counterfactual contexts in which alternative structures and processes came to be, albeit briefly, normalised. Two examples illustrate the risks and opportunities that emerged. First…
Framing the Future
Are we at risk of preserving in digital aspic current hegemonic ways of doing, talking and thinking about law and economy? Our dominant frames are those of neoclassical economics and doctrinal law, which, combined, align with neoliberal assumptions and preferences. Invisible through their ubiquity, these partially reveal and conceal problems and solutions, perpetuating inequalities. And yet, unlike social biases, our framing tends to fly largely …
Economic Sociology of Law Reimagined
UK science press officers, professional vision and the generation of expectations
Science press officers can play an integral role in helping promote expectations and hype about biomedical research. Using this as a starting point, this article draws on interviews with 10 UK-based science press officers, which explored how they view their role as science reporters and as generators of expectations. Using Goodwin’s notion of ‘professional vision’, we argue that science press officers have a specific professional vision that shap…
Awareness of alcohol advertisements and perceived influence on alcohol consumption
Despite the growing alcohol marketing activities of the transnational alcohol industries in Nigeria, little research has focussed on their effects on Nigerian youths. This study explores students’ awareness of electronic and outdoor alcohol advertisement on campus and around students’ off-campus residential and leisure sites, and the extent to which they perceive it to affect their drinking. Thirty-one in-depth interviews were conducted with male…
Sociology of Low Expectations
Social scientists have drawn attention to the role of hype and optimistic visions of the future in providing momentum to biomedical innovation projects by encouraging innovation alliances. In this article, we show how less optimistic, uncertain, and modest visions of the future can also provide innovation projects with momentum. Scholars have highlighted the need for clinicians to carefully manage the expectations of their prospective patients. U…
Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces
An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing…
Neuroscientists' everyday experiences of ethics
The ethical issues neuroscience raises are subject to increasing attention, exemplified in the emergence of the discipline neuroethics. While the moral implications of neurotechnological developments are often discussed, less is known about how ethics intersects with everyday work in neuroscience and how scientists themselves perceive the ethics of their research. Drawing on observation and interviews with members of one UK group conducting neuro…
On being a (modern) scientist
In 2006, a small group of UK academic scientists made headlines when they proposed the creation of interspecies embryos - mixing human and animal genetic material. A public campaign was fought to mobilize support for the research. Drawing on interviews with the key scientists involved, this paper argues that engaging the public through communicating their ideas via the media can result in tensions between the necessity of, and inherent dangers in…
Get into Reading as an intervention for common mental health problems
There is increasing evidence for the efficacy of non-medical strategies to improve mental health and well-being. Get into Reading is a shared reading intervention which has demonstrable acceptability and feasibility. This paper explores potential catalysts for change resulting from Get into Reading. Two weekly reading groups ran for 12 months, in a GP surgery and a mental health drop-in centre, for people with a GP diagnosis of depression and a v…
Embryo futures and stem cell research
In the social worlds of assisted conception and stem cell science, uncertainties proliferate and particular framings of the future may be highly strategic. In this article we explore meanings and articulations of the future using data from our study of ethical and social issues implicated by the donation of embryos to human embryonic stem cell research in three linked assisted conception units and stem cell laboratories in the UK. Framings of the…
Fresh or frozen? Classifying 'spare' embryos for donation to human embryonic stem cell research
A 'healthy baby
This article reports from a study exploring the social processes, meanings and institutions that frame and produce 'ethical problems' and clinical dilemmas for practitioners, scientists and others working in the specialty of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). A major topic in the data was that, in contrast to IVF, the aim of PGD is to transfer to the woman's womb only those embryos likely to be unaffected by serious genetic disorders; that …
Shaping Belief
Religious Discourse: Transmission and Appropriation 1. Tell the Story: Re-imagining Victorian Conversion Narratives - Andrew Tate 2. 'Recognizing Fellow-Creatures': F.D. Maurice, Octavia Hill, Josephine Butler - Hester Jones 3. 'Filthy Lucre': Christianity, Commerce and the Female Bodily Economy in Seamstress Narratives of the 1840s - Ella Dzelzainis 4. Isaiah and Ezekiel - But What about Charley? An Essay on 'Wanting to Believe' - Philip Davis I…
Spaces of speech and places of performance
In this paper we develop a geography of science framework to examine the social, scientific and medical dimensions of human embryonic stem cell research. We outline David Livingstone's approach to geographies of science as "sites of speech and locations of locution" to explore the spatial shaping of science and the scientific shaping of space. Drawing upon our ongoing research on the problems and prospects of stem cell science, particularly the i…
Human embryos as boundary objects? Some reflections on the biomedical worlds of embryonic stem cells and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
In this paper we offer some reflections on embryos in the biomedical worlds of embryonic stem cells (ESC) and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). We draw upon two ethnographic studies of the social practices of PGD and embryonic stem cell science to examine the notion of boundary objects as an approach for understanding the social construction of embryos. We analyze the ways in which human embryos have similar and different meanings in the …
Shifting paradigms? Reflections on regenerative medicine, embryonic stem cells and pharmaceuticals
Will human embryonic stem (hES) cells lead to a revolutionary new regenerative medicine? We begin to answer this question by drawing on interviews with scientists and clinicians from leading labs and clinics in the UK and the USA, exploring their views on the bench-bedside interface in the fields of hES cells, neuroscience and diabetes. We employ Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital in order to understand stem cell science and cell t…
Sociology of Health and Illness
The 30th anniversary of Sociology of Health and Illness falls in 2008 and is an appropriate point at which to reflect on the journal's achievements and future direction. In this issue we publish two articles which extend this reflection to medical sociology as a whole. The first, by Timmermans and Haas (‘Towards a sociology of disease’) argues that the future of medical sociology should involve a renewal of interest in how specific diseases and t…
The embryo as moral work object
We report on one aspect of a study that explored the views and experiences of practitioners and scientists on social, ethical and clinical dilemmas encountered when working in the field of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for serious genetic disorders. The study produced an ethnography based on observation, interviews and ethics discussion groups with staff from two PGD/IVF Units in the UK. We focus here on staff perceptions of work with e…
From Core Set to Assemblage
From Core Set to Assemblage: On the Dynamics of Exclusion and Inclusion in the Failure to Derive Beta Cells from Embryonic Stem Cells** In this paper, we examine the controversy surrounding the Lumelsky protocol (which potentially could have transformed the procedures for differentiating embryonic stem cells into beta cells for diabetes treatment). The protocol is analyzed initially using Collins’ core set model to show how the controversy over e…
Remaking the body? Scientists' genetic discourses and practices as examples of changing expectations on embryonic stem cell therapy for diabetes
AbstratIn this paper we discuss genetic discourses and practices in stem cell science. We report on how biomedical scientists, in both the UK and the USA, view the scientific literature and their own experimental research in the emerging field of human embryonic stem (hES) cells. We focus on the genetic manipulation of stem cells to make specialized (beta) cells as a potential cure for diabetes. We draw on Gieryn's notion of boundary work as an a…
Facilitating choice, framing choice
Globalization, Habitus, and the Balletic Body
The aim in this article is to write an evocative ethnography of the embodiment of ballet as a cultural practice. The authors draw on their fieldwork at the Royal Ballet (London), where they conducted 20 in-depth interviews with ballet staff (and watched 'the company at work' in class, rehearsal, and performance). They explored dancers' (n = 9) and ex-dancers' (who are now teachers, administrators, and character dancers; n = 11) perceptions of the…
Choosing embryos
The technique of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is commonly explained as a way of checking the genes of embryos produced by IVF for serious genetic diseases. However, complex accounts of this technique emerged during ethics discussion groups held for PGD staff. These form part of a study exploring the social processes, meanings and institutions that frame and produce 'ethical problems' for practitioners, scientists and others working in …
Real Science, Biological Bodies and Stem Cells
Ethical boundary-work in the embryonic stem cell laboratory
Most accounts of the ethics of stem cell research are de- contextualised reviews of the ethical and legal literature. In this chapter we present a socially embedded account of some of the ethical implications of stem cell research, from the perspectives of scientists directly involved in this area. Based on an ethnography of two leading embryonic stem cell laboratories in the UK, our data form part of the findings from a larger project mapping th…
From bench to bedside? Biomedical scientists' expectations of stem cell science as a future therapy for diabetes
Forecasting science futures
Envisaging the embryo in stem cell research
How is the embryo defined, envisaged, imagined? Who speaks on its behalf, and how? Based on a study of UK press and TV news reporting, this paper identifies the rhetorical strategies used to assert competing ethical positions around embryonic stem cell research. We show how both sides in the dispute mobilise metaphors and use personification to recruit support; and how they promote different ideas about the embryo's significance, size, and social…
Women as moral pioneers? Experiences of first trimester antenatal screening
Is nondirectiveness possible within the context of antenatal screening and testing
Framing the fetus in medical work
Dilemmas in fetal medicine
It is argued that innovative health technologies (IHTs) may be changing the roles of both patients and health practitioners, and raising new issues, including ethical, legal and social dilemmas. This paper focuses on the innovative area of fetal medicine. All fetal treatment necessitates accessing the fetus through the pregnant woman's body, and non-surgical treatments have long been a part of pregnancy care. However, recent developments in this …
Doing health, doing gender
Social welfare, genetic welfare? Boundary-work in the IVF/PGD clinic
Varieties of habitus and the embodiment of ballet
The overall aim of our research was to produce an ethnography of ballet as a social practice. We draw upon our fieldwork at the Royal Ballet (London) where we conducted 20 in-depth interviews with ballet staff, and observed 'the company at work', in class, rehearsal, and performance. We explored dancers' ( n = 9) and ex-dancers' (who are now administrators, teachers, and character dancers: n = 11) perceptions of their bodies, dancing careers, and…
Alert assistants in managing chronic illness
In this paper the organising concept of the 'alert assistant' is developed to identify and explore the skilled and often invisible work which mothers of teenage boys with a chronic illness carried out on behalf of their sons. The term 'alert assistant' implies that the needs of the person being assisted are identified, or preferably anticipated and subsequently met, by the assistant. Two inter-relating factors influenced how mothers constructed t…
The embryo as moral work object
We report on one aspect of a study that explored the views and experiences of practitioners and scientists on social, ethical and clinical dilemmas encountered when working in the field of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for serious genetic disorders. The study produced an ethnography based on observation, interviews and ethics discussion groups with staff from two PGD/IVF Units in the UK. We focus here on staff perceptions of work with e…
On being at higher risk
Too many choices? Hospital and community staff reflect on the future of prenatal screening
Choosing embryos
The technique of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is commonly explained as a way of checking the genes of embryos produced by IVF for serious genetic diseases. However, complex accounts of this technique emerged during ethics discussion groups held for PGD staff. These form part of a study exploring the social processes, meanings and institutions that frame and produce 'ethical problems' for practitioners, scientists and others working in …
Fractured identities
Social worlds shape human bodies and so it is inevitable that there are strong relationships between the body, professional dance and identity. In this article we draw on Bourdieu's notions of habitus, and various forms of capital, as the main theoretical framework for our discussion. Our ethnography of the balletic body elicited dancers and ex-dancers' perceptions of their bodies and sought to reveal some of the facets of their embodied habitus.…
Get into Reading as an intervention for common mental health problems
There is increasing evidence for the efficacy of non-medical strategies to improve mental health and well-being. Get into Reading is a shared reading intervention which has demonstrable acceptability and feasibility. This paper explores potential catalysts for change resulting from Get into Reading. Two weekly reading groups ran for 12 months, in a GP surgery and a mental health drop-in centre, for people with a GP diagnosis of depression and a v…
Sociology of Low Expectations
Social scientists have drawn attention to the role of hype and optimistic visions of the future in providing momentum to biomedical innovation projects by encouraging innovation alliances. In this article, we show how less optimistic, uncertain, and modest visions of the future can also provide innovation projects with momentum. Scholars have highlighted the need for clinicians to carefully manage the expectations of their prospective patients. U…
Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces
An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing…
Fresh or frozen? Classifying 'spare' embryos for donation to human embryonic stem cell research
Neuroscientists' everyday experiences of ethics
The ethical issues neuroscience raises are subject to increasing attention, exemplified in the emergence of the discipline neuroethics. While the moral implications of neurotechnological developments are often discussed, less is known about how ethics intersects with everyday work in neuroscience and how scientists themselves perceive the ethics of their research. Drawing on observation and interviews with members of one UK group conducting neuro…
Shifting paradigms? Reflections on regenerative medicine, embryonic stem cells and pharmaceuticals
Will human embryonic stem (hES) cells lead to a revolutionary new regenerative medicine? We begin to answer this question by drawing on interviews with scientists and clinicians from leading labs and clinics in the UK and the USA, exploring their views on the bench-bedside interface in the fields of hES cells, neuroscience and diabetes. We employ Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital in order to understand stem cell science and cell t…
Facilitating choice, framing choice
A 'healthy baby
This article reports from a study exploring the social processes, meanings and institutions that frame and produce 'ethical problems' and clinical dilemmas for practitioners, scientists and others working in the specialty of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). A major topic in the data was that, in contrast to IVF, the aim of PGD is to transfer to the woman's womb only those embryos likely to be unaffected by serious genetic disorders; that …
Anglo‐german Conversation Piece
Doing health, doing gender
Alert assistants in managing chronic illness
In this paper the organising concept of the 'alert assistant' is developed to identify and explore the skilled and often invisible work which mothers of teenage boys with a chronic illness carried out on behalf of their sons. The term 'alert assistant' implies that the needs of the person being assisted are identified, or preferably anticipated and subsequently met, by the assistant. Two inter-relating factors influenced how mothers constructed t…
Conflicting perceptions of the fetus
Different constructions of the fetus lie at the centre of reproductive, abortion and disability politics. Recent developments mean that, within the same hospital, a fetus may be perceived in contrasting and potentially conflicting ways. It is also argued that the status given to the fetus is directly relevant to the status given to pregnant women. During group discussions facilitated by an ethicist, health-care staff highlighted various perceptio…
'Drawing the line' in prenatal screening and testing
As the number of fetal conditions which can potentially be screened and tested for rises, the question of whether limits should be set around prenatal screening is a timely one. There are many areas of disagreement as to whether a line can, or should be drawn, about what constitutes a 'severe' handicap, and about who should be involved in making such decisions. This paper reports on how health practitioners involved in prenatal screening discusse…
Too many choices? Hospital and community staff reflect on the future of prenatal screening
Is nondirectiveness possible within the context of antenatal screening and testing
Envisaging the embryo in stem cell research
How is the embryo defined, envisaged, imagined? Who speaks on its behalf, and how? Based on a study of UK press and TV news reporting, this paper identifies the rhetorical strategies used to assert competing ethical positions around embryonic stem cell research. We show how both sides in the dispute mobilise metaphors and use personification to recruit support; and how they promote different ideas about the embryo's significance, size, and social…
Giselle , madness & death
In this paper the Romantic ballet Giselle (1841) is used as a case study through which to examine the themes of madness and death. Giselle is a heartrending story of the intertwining of love and death. It is argued that Giselle is an evocative example of narratives of hysteria and suicide, and literature in the field of medical history is drawn upon to demonstrate the relations between the cultural fields of ballet, medicine, and the wider social…
Practitioners' Views about Equity within Prenatal Services
The British National Health Service (NHS) is based on principles of equal access, treatment and outcomes.This article reviews health professionals' aims to provide equitable prenatal services and their views on whether women could be equal in their access to services, understanding during choice-making, and satisfaction about their care. Inequalities which compromise equity, conflicting meanings of equity, and the contribution of in-hospital ethi…
Forecasting science futures
Women as moral pioneers? Experiences of first trimester antenatal screening
Framing the fetus in medical work
Fractured identities
Social worlds shape human bodies and so it is inevitable that there are strong relationships between the body, professional dance and identity. In this article we draw on Bourdieu's notions of habitus, and various forms of capital, as the main theoretical framework for our discussion. Our ethnography of the balletic body elicited dancers and ex-dancers' perceptions of their bodies and sought to reveal some of the facets of their embodied habitus.…
Temporality and Prudence
Temporality and Prudence: On Stem Cells as "Phronesic Things" Mike Michael Goldsmiths University of London Steven P. Wainwright King's College London University of London Clare Williams King's College LondonUniversity of London In this paper we explore the temporalities entailed in scientists' accounts of their research into the use of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to develop beta cells for the treatment of diabetes. Stem cell scientists, by …
The Embodiment of Vulnerability
In this article we focus upon the embodiment of vulnerability as an area in which medicine, society and the humanities can be profitably conjoined. We illustrate our argument with two interrelated case studies of narratives of the embodiment of ageing and longevity. First, we draw upon Leoš Janáček's opera The Makropulos Case (1926) as a locus for debates about human longevity. Second, we discuss 70-year-old Janáček's decade of unrequited love fo…
Real Science, Biological Bodies and Stem Cells
From bench to bedside? Biomedical scientists' expectations of stem cell science as a future therapy for diabetes
Social welfare, genetic welfare? Boundary-work in the IVF/PGD clinic
On being at higher risk
Varieties of habitus and the embodiment of ballet
The overall aim of our research was to produce an ethnography of ballet as a social practice. We draw upon our fieldwork at the Royal Ballet (London) where we conducted 20 in-depth interviews with ballet staff, and observed 'the company at work', in class, rehearsal, and performance. We explored dancers' ( n = 9) and ex-dancers' (who are now administrators, teachers, and character dancers: n = 11) perceptions of their bodies, dancing careers, and…
Ethical boundary-work in the embryonic stem cell laboratory
Most accounts of the ethics of stem cell research are de- contextualised reviews of the ethical and legal literature. In this chapter we present a socially embedded account of some of the ethical implications of stem cell research, from the perspectives of scientists directly involved in this area. Based on an ethnography of two leading embryonic stem cell laboratories in the UK, our data form part of the findings from a larger project mapping th…
Dilemmas in fetal medicine
It is argued that innovative health technologies (IHTs) may be changing the roles of both patients and health practitioners, and raising new issues, including ethical, legal and social dilemmas. This paper focuses on the innovative area of fetal medicine. All fetal treatment necessitates accessing the fetus through the pregnant woman's body, and non-surgical treatments have long been a part of pregnancy care. However, recent developments in this …
From Core Set to Assemblage
From Core Set to Assemblage: On the Dynamics of Exclusion and Inclusion in the Failure to Derive Beta Cells from Embryonic Stem Cells** In this paper, we examine the controversy surrounding the Lumelsky protocol (which potentially could have transformed the procedures for differentiating embryonic stem cells into beta cells for diabetes treatment). The protocol is analyzed initially using Collins’ core set model to show how the controversy over e…
Remaking the body? Scientists' genetic discourses and practices as examples of changing expectations on embryonic stem cell therapy for diabetes
AbstratIn this paper we discuss genetic discourses and practices in stem cell science. We report on how biomedical scientists, in both the UK and the USA, view the scientific literature and their own experimental research in the emerging field of human embryonic stem (hES) cells. We focus on the genetic manipulation of stem cells to make specialized (beta) cells as a potential cure for diabetes. We draw on Gieryn's notion of boundary work as an a…
Sociology (30 obras) · Political science (23 obras) · Medicine (19 obras) · Psychology (19 obras) · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare (14 obras) · Law (14 obras) · Biology (13 obras) · Computer Science (12 obras) · Prenatal Screening and Diagnostics (12 obras) · Social science (12 obras)