Stefan Helmreich 1966 - Present

Quotes
“As an anthropologist of science … I am fascinated by how scientific abstractions operate to identify and create new entities in the world.”

Biography and History
Stephan Helmreich was born October 26th, 1966 and is currently working for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his PHD in anthropology at Stanford University along with fellowships at Cornell, Rutgers and NYU. His research consists of analyzing the way biologists process life as a form of analysis through microbiology, the deep sea and oceans. (MIT Anthropology Faculty)

Work
He is well known for his books Silicone Second Nature: Culturing artificial life in a digital world (1998), and Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas (2010). Silicone Second Nature won the Diana Forsythe Book Prize in 2001. In it he discusses how computer scientists see certain collections of data and self-replicating programs as new forms of life. It explores scientists have come to treat these new forms of life and how this conception of life redefines how individuals interact with their environment. (Helmreich. 2009)

His book Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas (2010), has won the Rachel Carson Prize, the Senior Scholar Book Prize and the Gregory Bateson Book Prize. In it he shows how deep sea microbes interact with each other and other species across geographical lines. Rather than looking at microbes as single entities, they are described as complex communities that contain a multitude of species and produce unique interactions with the world around them. He looks at how this has become important to current scientific discussion. (Helmreich. 1998)

His books contribute to the discussion of New Materialities by showing how the lines between humans and their environment have become blurred in our complex world.

Influences
Stefan Helmreich is considered to be part of the Cultural Materialism, the New Materialities, and the Multispecies Ethnography School of Thought by participating in a unique approach of Anthropology which focuses on engagements beyond the human. Cultural Materialities is a school pioneered by Marvin Harris, introduced in his book “The Rise of Anthropological Thought” in 1968 as a way of integrating the scientific method in anthropology (wikipedia).

Hi’s attention was directed towards engaging anthropology beyond the human by the post-structural writings of Foucault (Kirskey & Helmreich. 2010. 548). By highlighting a link between biopolitics and biocapital he extends Foucault’s theory beyond state boundaries into biological entities (Styhre. 35). Two other major theoretical influences for Helmreich were Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben. From Deleuze, Helmreich leases a multitude of concepts and methods of thought -process which inspired the style of Alien Ocean. Whereas Helmreich transforms the ideas purported by Agamben by adding onto his notions of zoe/bios by noting that bare life- zoe has begun appear alongside humans (Kirskey & Helmreich. 2010. 545-546)

In 2001, Helmreich published his essay “After Culture”  and inspired ethnologists to spotlight the multiplicities of scientific discourse in anthropology. Paul Rabinow, Mike Fortun, Marilyn Strathern amongst other  ethnologists were influenced by the works of Helmreich to study this alternative topic of inquiry associated with biosciences and biotechnologies (Multispecies Anthropology. 554). Feminist scholars were perhaps first to recognize the need for biological knowledge in anthropology (Kirskey & Helmreich. 2010. 550)

Throughout his career, Helmreich has collaborated as well as critiqued the works of other ethnologists such as Paxon, Lansing, Taussig and Rabinow alongside his colleagues he has inspired to do anthropology differently. Influence with Helmreich is never a one-way street. He works together with other ethnologists in a collaborative effort to include Science and Technology Studies (STS) in anthropology (Kirskey & Helmreich. 2010. 544). Although he may criticize their publications, they in turn will defend theses, such as academics do. Helmreich has been influenced by his colleagues and will influence others simultaneously to expand knowledge within the field.

Analysis
Stefan Helmreich focuses on the engagement beyond the human and on the relationships between culture and the economy. He poses questions about the function of culture based on a globalized, post-colonial world and uses various examples to justify his reasoning. His analysis of the marine microbial world, the enfranchisement of biocapitalism as well as his attempt to understand the economy’s relationship with culture through a diaspora, ethnoscape and deterritorialization of nation states and many more other examples present a clear justification of why culture and the economy work as one.

Alien Ocean addresses how the marine microbial world can be seen a replica of human culture by comparing both their developments. His book discusses the relationship between the oceanographic world and the ethnographic world seem to have become interconnected by adapting to foreign bodies. He discusses how cultures, like microbes, change over time because of outside influences and how they react to sudden changes in their surroundings. He explores the ways in which oceanographic changes, through interconnectedness, can have important economic cultural and economic impacts. (Helmreich. 2009)

His article “Species of Biocapital” discusses how the lives of individuals are changing cultural and economic circumstances. His account of a bioeconomy focuses on various effects life has had on the economy of science by pushing forth the study of genomics, stem-cell research and many other reproductive technologies. His explanation involves a historical perspective wherein life has affected culture and the economy. Among examples he shows how a population’s needs have modified ways of life. (Helmreich. 2008)

In his article entitled “Kinship, Nation and Paul Gilroy’s Concept of Diaspora,” he attempts to explain how today’s world has become homogenized through globalization. He does this by showing how globalization state is creating a series of deterritorialized of states, while connection nations together to create a single interdependent community mutually. As a result of this, when one culture becomes impacted by outside influences often other cultures become impacted in the same way. As a consequence this leads to the development of similar traits all around. (Helmreich. 1992)

His analyses are pertinent today because they question the popular understanding of the world and helps individuals understand what really drives today’s society. By exploring the relationships that exist between environment, culture and the economy, Helmreich is able show how the global economy is actually shaping  the world and how the world is shaping it. Like the various microbes affecting one another and the world around them, the global economy has larger consequences. As a result it can cause cultures around the world to become homogenized.

Critique
Stefan Helmreich’s work has been widely accepted as groundbreaking within the academic community. However he has also faced criticism for failing to understand the particulars of institutional systems. Although there is little criticism of the general publications by Helmreich, his critiques of other’s work has come under scrutiny. He has demanded for too wide a scope within ethnographies, especially when he criticises authors for not including all data in their studies. Lansing believes Helmreich to focus on appearance of simulations rather than their content (Lansing. 2000. 310 & 314). Helmreich has also been noted by other ethnographers to be derisive of second-order observations, even though in anthropology, first-order observations will inevitably bias second-order observations. Langlitz also remarks that Helmreich’s “inarticulate uneasiness about the emergent biosecurity apparatus resonates with a widely felt discomfort in academia.” (Langlitz & Helmreich. 2005. 20).