Abstract Summary
In the mid-1970s, the Black Panther biochemist Curtis Powell pledged to publish his research only in African journals, in order to force western acknowledgment of African science. Five years before the publication of Bruno Latour’s Laboratory Life (1979), Powell was drawing on a precise understanding of how cycles of credit and credibility operated in the production of scientific knowledge. Unlike Latour, however, Powell’s epistemological analysis was deeply grounded both in his commitment to black radical politics and his faith in empirical research. Back in the United States, Indian-born chemist Sheila Rajender’s class action lawsuit against the University of Minnesota secured a historic consent decree requiring oversight of university hiring. Her case exemplified a key moment of anti-essentialist federal intervention for women in science. But the promise of Rajender’s approach was short-lived, as the election of Ronald Reagan and subsequent elevation of Clarence Thomas as the new head of the EEOC quickly made clear. Across the Atlantic in England, the biologist Cesar Milstein, pioneer of hybridoma research, warned against intellectual property regimes that would turn basic research into a “profit-seeking enterprise.” He shared his work widely, even with competitors who promptly sought their own patents and profits. Milstein’s views thus stood in stark contrast to both Margaret Thatcher’s nationalist science priorities and the emerging biotech industry in the United States. All three of these figures embraced alternative visions of the democratization of science; recovering their lost perspectives yields insights into the politics of 1970s science and the controversies of today.
