Previous Conferences:
| What Sorts of People Should There Be? |
What Sorts of People Should There Be? is a broad, interdisciplinary, collaborative project in the humanities and social sciences that is focused on human variation, normalcy, and enhancement. By weaving together distinct philosophical, historical, and comparative threads through the establishment of a Canadian-based team of 44 researchers from 18 disciplines, this project will undertake innovative work on this topic at the interface of the humanities, biotechnology, and the social and health sciences. It will range from exploring the relatively unexamined history of eugenics in Canada (especially Western Canada), to understanding ideas about and policies concerning bioenhancement and normalcy in distinct cultural and national contexts, to engaging in more speculative, future-oriented reflection on emerging biotechnology and its entwinement with social planning and individual decisions.
The structure that these threads give to the project, together with the particular expertise of team members, have created several further thematic foci for What Sorts of People Should There Be? Emerging themes that the interactive synergy of the project has already generated at this early stage include: Disability, technology, and social policy (15 researchers) The relationships between our three project threads provide the key to integrating the work of this large-scale collaboration. Within-thread work will be informed by research in the other threads, and meetings of the whole research team will facilitate this integration. Ongoing research will be integrated through web interfaces of various kinds, as well as smaller, more focused meetings and workshops with community partners. Taking seriously the disability activist slogan Nothing About Us, Without Us, team membership has been structured inclusively and major, national-level community organizations, such as the Canadian Centre on Disability Studies, the Canadian Association for Community Living, and the American Association of People with Disabilities have expressed interest in the project. Alberta-based team members will also work actively with individuals directly affected by Alberta’s eugenic sterilization program. What Sorts of People Should There Be? Past, Present, Future innovatively combines historical, sociological, and philosophical perspectives to link largely unexplored questions about Canadian social history together with forward-looking questions about the place of biological knowledge, biotechnology, and science in individual and social decision-making, planning, and policy. Human enhancement, normalcy, and variation are topics of immediate public interest and with far-reaching implications for the future. By integrating community involvement and by harnessing strong existing interest in these topics, this project will make an enduring and innovative contribution to knowledge in society. |
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Collaborative Team: Nicola Fairbrother Robert A. Wilson (team organizer) |