This presentation was given at the 'Beyond Scaling Up: Pathways to Universal Access' workshop which was held at the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton on the 24-25 May, 2010. This event was co-sponsored by the Future Health Systems Research Programme Consortium and the STEPS Centre. Street and Kelly's presentation focussed on how place is built into science
Just to conclude I want to bring this question about the affective texture think back to the sociological consequences of where STOPMAL took place. For though no one knew it then but STOPMAL was to be one of the last trials to be hosted in Farafenni. In the February 2009, the staff of the station was informed that MRC head offices in London had shifted its investments in the Gambia to support regional collaborations and scientific networks across West Africa. In addition to closing Farafenni, over the next 5 years, the MRC will cut the Gambia’s budget in half. The rationale is to create the opportunity to conduct multi-centered studies on a greater number of people and thus, enhance the quality of research and the speed by which it is conducted. As one might expect, this plan has not been well received by Gambians, who feel betrayed by the MRC. Just another example of how the priorities of international research and community health needs are not always easy to square. Ethical focus on what must be added to experimental endeavour in southern countries reflects an effort to bridge these interests. By contrast, I think shifting attention from supplementing ethical protocols to the generative capacity of everyday work of research in its place, provides a sounder basis from which to reinforce the relationship between scientific rigour and social value. This is one place where STS can contribute, in giving some analytical purchase to how science accounts place and how specific localities matter and matter differently for epistemic claims.