Rebeca Ibáñez Martín
Rebeca Ibáñez Martín holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science "cum laude" from the University of Salmanca, Spain. She defended her thesis titled "Bad to eat? Empirical Explorations of Fat" in May 2014. She is trained as a Historian (UCM, Madrid) and has a MA in Social Studies of Science (U. of Oviedo), and MA in Feminist Critical Theory, (UCM). She has done post graduate studies in various international Universities including U. of California, Davis; Aarhus University (Denmark), and U. of Amsterdam (Netherlands).
My dissertation project analyses fat as food in specific cases where notions and dispositions towards good or bad fat were enacted and discussed. This work offers a philosophical and ethnographical reflection about the object in the practices where it was researched. The aim is not to “represent” particular people, or particular stories but to work with them and relate with them.
One of the contributions this dissertation makes is offering a challenging study of the social, technical, and tacit dimension of fat as a scientific object, material substance and cultural obsession. Throughout this work I have advanced the understanding of the social life of biomedical and nutritional knowledge of fat along with the material-semiotic agencies of food and diet, by taking materiality seriously in order to understand human and material entanglements. In doing so I contributed to an understanding of the relations of fat in terms of emergent assemblages.
Currently I am part of the "Eating Bodies in Western Theory and Practice" team, led by prof. Annemarie Mol at the University of Amsterdam.
I am also in the team that coordinates the Spanish Network of Science, Technology and Society Studies (http://redescts.wordpress.com/) A video of the Network can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpQh0k9mJRU
Supervisors: prof. Annemarie Mol
My dissertation project analyses fat as food in specific cases where notions and dispositions towards good or bad fat were enacted and discussed. This work offers a philosophical and ethnographical reflection about the object in the practices where it was researched. The aim is not to “represent” particular people, or particular stories but to work with them and relate with them.
One of the contributions this dissertation makes is offering a challenging study of the social, technical, and tacit dimension of fat as a scientific object, material substance and cultural obsession. Throughout this work I have advanced the understanding of the social life of biomedical and nutritional knowledge of fat along with the material-semiotic agencies of food and diet, by taking materiality seriously in order to understand human and material entanglements. In doing so I contributed to an understanding of the relations of fat in terms of emergent assemblages.
Currently I am part of the "Eating Bodies in Western Theory and Practice" team, led by prof. Annemarie Mol at the University of Amsterdam.
I am also in the team that coordinates the Spanish Network of Science, Technology and Society Studies (http://redescts.wordpress.com/) A video of the Network can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpQh0k9mJRU
Supervisors: prof. Annemarie Mol
less
Uploads
Papers by Rebeca Ibáñez Martín
the nutrient content of foods. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in
domestic kitchens, I argue that this essentializing approach fails to
attend to the multiple “registers of valuation” of foods – and especially
of fats – that are at work in the practice of cooking. This argument has
policy implications: for dietary recommendations to transform eating
practices it is necessary to take into account how, while cooking, actors
draw on these various forms of valuation. Such a re-focus will make
dietary recommendations more sensitive to the social and material
conditions under which cooking is done and better attuned to the
eating practices present in mundane culinary contexts.
De Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, February 15, 2015
doesn’t have the characteristics of a “typical
association”? Which members would form the
association? Which places would be its sites of
action? These are a few questions that, at least
partially, describe the developing process of the
Spanish Network for Science and Tech nology Studies (Red eSCTS) since its launch in 2010.
The very name of a “network” (instead of
association) points to a first main goal: to explore
a new modality of academic relation.
Palabras clave: coproducción, colesterol, margarina, prácticas
Attempts to relate high cholesterol to the risks associated with cardiovascular disease date back to 1916. Since 1950, intensive clinical and epidemiological studies have sought evidence for this relationship. The “cholesterol hypothesis”, far from being accepted, enjoyed not only great debate during the 1950's, but also great amounts of attention from the public. The importance gained by nutritional ideas was essential to establish a relation between cholesterol acquired through diet with high blood cholesterol and an increase of the risks associated with cardiovascular disease. In this context, the appearance on the U.S. market of a margarine based on vegetable polyunsaturated fatty acids that reduces cholesterol, and the hypothesis that high cholesterol is a risk factor for developing heart disease, are an example of the complex relationship between scientific research, food industry and consumers in this process. All of them participate in a process of co-production of knowledge about cholesterol, diet and prevention of coronary heart disease.
Key words: coproduction, cholesterol, margarine, practices
Palabras clave: alimentos funcionales, nutrición, biomedicalización, percepción social de la ciencia y la tecnología, mujeres, salud.
Abstract: Certain aspects of daily life, previously outside the jurisdiction of medicine, are being increasingly defined as medical problems. One such example is the rise of functional foods, which inhabit an unclear boundary between preventive medicine, and just food. In this market, women are a preferred objective, since studies have shown their interest in health issues. This article explores the way in which the image of women in the manufacture and advertising of functional foods reflects the emergence of new "lifestyles" that pose a challenge to the deficit model in public understanding of science and the figuration of women as caregivers.
Key words: functional foods, nutritional knowledge, biomedicalization, social perception of science and technology, women, health.
Books by Rebeca Ibáñez Martín
Los trabajos que componen este volumen no parten de una idea prefijada de lo que un cuerpo es y cuáles son sus fronteras sino que pretenden analizar, en cambio, los muchos cuerpos producidos y performados por diferentes prácticas bio-médicas y las “conexiones parciales” entre ellos: los cuerpos de las tecnologías reproductivas y terapéuticas, los de las tecnologías de re/asignación de sexo, de las tecnologías reparadoras, etc. En este libro encontrarán reflexiones en torno a una pregunta aparentemente sencilla pero inquietante al mismo tiempo ¿cómo se hacen los cuerpos? ¿Cómo se modelan en la práctica y cuáles son los significados atribuidos a ciertos cuerpos en éstas?
La obra está estructurada en tres secciones y un epílogo. Las tres partes están dedicadas al estudio de los cuerpos en tres territorios distintos: la primera se encarga de los cuerpos como objeto de la investigación biomédica, la segunda de los cuerpos que se hacen a través de esas mismas prácticas, y la tercera de los cuerpos en los espacios liminales de la “feminidad” . El volumen concluye con un epílogo a cargo de la filósofa Helen Longino.
Book Chapters by Rebeca Ibáñez Martín
cognitivo, se subraya el papel de la confianza en las fuentes de información y la relevancia de la misma en el contexto individualizado y globalizado de las sociedades contemporáneas.
In the Press by Rebeca Ibáñez Martín
”irracional“?
the nutrient content of foods. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in
domestic kitchens, I argue that this essentializing approach fails to
attend to the multiple “registers of valuation” of foods – and especially
of fats – that are at work in the practice of cooking. This argument has
policy implications: for dietary recommendations to transform eating
practices it is necessary to take into account how, while cooking, actors
draw on these various forms of valuation. Such a re-focus will make
dietary recommendations more sensitive to the social and material
conditions under which cooking is done and better attuned to the
eating practices present in mundane culinary contexts.
De Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, February 15, 2015
doesn’t have the characteristics of a “typical
association”? Which members would form the
association? Which places would be its sites of
action? These are a few questions that, at least
partially, describe the developing process of the
Spanish Network for Science and Tech nology Studies (Red eSCTS) since its launch in 2010.
The very name of a “network” (instead of
association) points to a first main goal: to explore
a new modality of academic relation.
Palabras clave: coproducción, colesterol, margarina, prácticas
Attempts to relate high cholesterol to the risks associated with cardiovascular disease date back to 1916. Since 1950, intensive clinical and epidemiological studies have sought evidence for this relationship. The “cholesterol hypothesis”, far from being accepted, enjoyed not only great debate during the 1950's, but also great amounts of attention from the public. The importance gained by nutritional ideas was essential to establish a relation between cholesterol acquired through diet with high blood cholesterol and an increase of the risks associated with cardiovascular disease. In this context, the appearance on the U.S. market of a margarine based on vegetable polyunsaturated fatty acids that reduces cholesterol, and the hypothesis that high cholesterol is a risk factor for developing heart disease, are an example of the complex relationship between scientific research, food industry and consumers in this process. All of them participate in a process of co-production of knowledge about cholesterol, diet and prevention of coronary heart disease.
Key words: coproduction, cholesterol, margarine, practices
Palabras clave: alimentos funcionales, nutrición, biomedicalización, percepción social de la ciencia y la tecnología, mujeres, salud.
Abstract: Certain aspects of daily life, previously outside the jurisdiction of medicine, are being increasingly defined as medical problems. One such example is the rise of functional foods, which inhabit an unclear boundary between preventive medicine, and just food. In this market, women are a preferred objective, since studies have shown their interest in health issues. This article explores the way in which the image of women in the manufacture and advertising of functional foods reflects the emergence of new "lifestyles" that pose a challenge to the deficit model in public understanding of science and the figuration of women as caregivers.
Key words: functional foods, nutritional knowledge, biomedicalization, social perception of science and technology, women, health.
Los trabajos que componen este volumen no parten de una idea prefijada de lo que un cuerpo es y cuáles son sus fronteras sino que pretenden analizar, en cambio, los muchos cuerpos producidos y performados por diferentes prácticas bio-médicas y las “conexiones parciales” entre ellos: los cuerpos de las tecnologías reproductivas y terapéuticas, los de las tecnologías de re/asignación de sexo, de las tecnologías reparadoras, etc. En este libro encontrarán reflexiones en torno a una pregunta aparentemente sencilla pero inquietante al mismo tiempo ¿cómo se hacen los cuerpos? ¿Cómo se modelan en la práctica y cuáles son los significados atribuidos a ciertos cuerpos en éstas?
La obra está estructurada en tres secciones y un epílogo. Las tres partes están dedicadas al estudio de los cuerpos en tres territorios distintos: la primera se encarga de los cuerpos como objeto de la investigación biomédica, la segunda de los cuerpos que se hacen a través de esas mismas prácticas, y la tercera de los cuerpos en los espacios liminales de la “feminidad” . El volumen concluye con un epílogo a cargo de la filósofa Helen Longino.
cognitivo, se subraya el papel de la confianza en las fuentes de información y la relevancia de la misma en el contexto individualizado y globalizado de las sociedades contemporáneas.
”irracional“?
Podríamos pensar en las cocinas como si fueran espacios paradigmáticos de creación y experimentación de conocimiento colectivo. O pensar sobre el carácter culinario del laboratorio. Antes que el laboratorio, la cocina es el lugar de la experimentación y la transformación. En el texto sugiero investigar qué podemos aprender y copiar teórica y metodológicamente sobre la creación del conocimiento en una cocina. Las recetas han sido un modelo paradigmático de lo común que, sin embargo, ha sido poco explorado como modelo teórico. No hay nada más abierto que una tortilla de patatas".
Rebeca Ibáñez Martín, Sebastian Abrahamsson, Filippo Bertoni & Annemarie Mol
Abstract:
These days (if only because environmental issues are getting ever more pressing), many of us seek to attend to matter and its capacities to act. Going with other forms of new materialism,
Jane Bennett talks of ‘thing-power’. But how to best attend to materialities?
To address this question, we will focus on a specific case, that of omega 3 fatty acids. In her Vibrant Matter Bennett relates that these ‘things’ are capable of altering the moods of the people
who ingest them. But when explored in more detail, it appears that this is not everything they do. In different contexts (prisons, research labs, fish, oceans) omega 3 fatty acids engage in
a range of different activities. And, or so we would like to argue, they never do so alone. It is laudable that Bennett seeks to draw ‘things’ into an all too human political philosophy.
However, our empirical explorations make us wonder if she might not (at the same time) be drawing (as a Trojan horse) an doubtful political philosophy into new materialism. For
the solitary things of her stories show a striking resemblance to the liberal subject. We will suggest ways of importing other political philosophy traditions into our materialism and
propose a shift from the question what ‘things’ do, to that other one: how might we live
together.
Place: Medialab-Prado. Plaza de las Letras, C/ Alameda, 15 · Madrid
The first meeting of the Social Studies of Science and Technology Network in Spain (eSCTS) aims to gather during three days researchers that work in Spain in this research fiel aiming to create a discussion and exchange space for shared knowledgeThat is why it has been called Making Visible the Invisible. What are our jobs bringing into light? What do different approaches of social studies of science add? What do they don't or invisibilize? Based on these premises we pretend to try a double exercise: on one hand, we want to discuss what do these studies add as a theoretical approach to social analysis, and on the other, try to make visible these research fields, debating the importance of social studies of science and technology, the variety of their approaches, as well as the different possibilities they offer to support a rich dialog among disciplines.