“She notes that “genomic science is often justified in terms of outcomes for health, agriculture or the environment, more or less embracing the “big science” definition in its original form” although she counters that DNA sequencing is “basic science.”
Tousignant asks: “If toxicology everywhere is unprotective, then what, if anything, is distinctive about toxicology in Senegal?” [She asks this to move away from the have/have not questions. Citing work by Michelle Murphy, she assumes that toxicology everywhere is unprotective].
“What if postcolonial Africa were to become a prominant place of not just raw materials and end users but of the basic science of pharmaceutical knowledge-making?” (849)
Tilley is interested in the effects and legacies of “colonial science” (a formulation that she seeks demonstrate is untenable and the construction and relevance of indigenous knowledge and ethnosciences. (330)
This analyst is thinking about “Africa” largely by its geographic boundaries and especially thinking about how to talk about translations between different knowledges on the continent. She is particularly looking at how “primitive knowledges” were constructed and how the parameters for its study were often defined explicitly in scientific terms.