Dr Javier Lezaun

Javier Lezaun is Associate Professor in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS).

Javier’s research lies at the intersection of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). His work explores the interplay of scientific and political change

Contact

Email: javier.lezaun@insis.ox.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1865 288943

Teaching and research interests

Javier’s current research focuses on the production and use of scientific knowledge in global health interventions. Much of this work centres on the control of mosquito-borne diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, often in collaboration with medical entomologists. Between 2016 and 2019 he directed the project Acting in an uncertain world: mapping public health responses to the Zika epidemic in Brazil, with colleagues at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

Javier is also researching the development and governance of new technologies that might be used to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. He directs the Greenhouse Gas Removal Instruments and Policies project, focused on the international politics of large-scale carbon dioxide removal, and is part of the new H2020 project Ocean NETs, which will explore the feasibility of ocean-based interventions to tackle climate change.

Javier is also PI of the project MODEL-POL (Understanding the uses of mathematical models in policy-making), funded by the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership, and co-Investigator in the Oxford Martin Programme on Transboundary Resource Management research programme, analysing the potential for cross-border co-operation on natural resources in the eastern Nile Basin and the Jordan River Basin.

Prior research includes the ERC-funded programme BioProperty (Biomedical Research and the Future of Property Rights), which explored patterns of exchange and privatization in the contemporary life sciences. Javier continues to research the development of new therapeutics, particularly pharmaceutical products targeting global diseases of the poor.

Teaching and Doctoral Supervision

Javier is currently teaching the option course Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, as well as occasional lectures in the Medical Anthropology MSc and the Human Sciences BA.

He welcomes enquiries from individuals wishing to undertake doctoral or post-doctoral research in STS and/or the Anthropology of Science, particularly on topics relating to global health and climate change.

Current DPhil Students

Austin Argentieri
Samuel Murison
Seamus Montgomery
Karl Dudman
Noёlle Rohde
Christiaan de Koning

Publications

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

Finda, M. F., Christofides, N., Lezaun, J., Tarimo, B., Chaki, P., Kelly, A. H., ... & Okumu, F. O. (2020). Opinions of key stakeholders on alternative interventions for malaria control and elimination in Tanzania. Malaria Journal, 19, 1-13.

Kelly, A. H., Lezaun, J., Löwy, I., Matta, G. C., de Oliveira Nogueira, C., & Rabello, E. T. (2020). Uncertainty in times of medical emergency: Knowledge gaps and structural ignorance during the Brazilian Zika crisis. Social Science & Medicine, 112787.

Greenhough, B., Read, C. J., Lorimer, J., Lezaun, J., McLeod, C., Benezra, A., ... & Dumitriu, A. (2020). Setting the agenda for social science research on the human microbiome. Palgrave Communications, 6(1), 1-11.

Bellamy, R., Lezaun, J., & Palmer, J. (2019). Perceptions of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage in different policy scenarios. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-9.

Bartumeus, F., Costa, G. B., Eritja, R., Kelly, A. H., Finda, M., Lezaun, J., ... & Vaughan, M. (2019). Sustainable innovation in vector control requires strong partnerships with communities. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 13(4).

Lezaun, J. (2018). The deferred promise of radical cure: pharmaceutical conjugations of malaria in the global health era. Economy and Society, 47(4), 547-571.

Kelly, A. H., and Lezaun, J. (2017). The Wild Indoors: Room-Spaces of Scientific Inquiry. Cultural Anthropology, 32(3), 367-398.

Lezaun, J. and Muniesa, F. (2017). Twilight in the leadership playground: subrealism and the training of the business self. Journal of Cultural Economy 10(3): 265-279.

Bellamy, R., Lezaun, J., and Palmer, J. (2017). Public perceptions of geoengineering research governance: An experimental deliberative approach. Global Environmental Change. 45: 194-202.

Bellamy, R., and Lezaun, J. (2017). Crafting a Public for Geoengineering. Public Understanding of Science, 26(4), 402-417.

De Campos, A.S., Hartley, S., de Koning, C., Lezaun, J., and Velho, L. (2017). Responsible Innovation and political accountability: genetically modified mosquitoes in Brazil. Journal of Responsible Innovation.

Schneider, T., Eli, K., McLennan, A., Dolan, C., Lezaun, J., and Ulijaszek, S. (2017). Governance by campaign: the co-constitution of food issues, publics and expertise through new information and communication technologies. Information, Communication & Society, 1-21.

Lezaun, J. and Montgomery, C. (2015) The pharmaceutical commons: Sharing and exclusion in global health drug development. Science, Technology & Human Values, 40(1), 3-29.

Lezaun, J. and Porter, N. Containment or competition: Transgenic animals in the One Health agenda. Social Science and Medicine. 129:96-105

Woolgar, S. and Lezaun, J. (2015) Missing the (question) mark? What is a turn to ontology?. Social Studies of Science. 1-6

Kelly, A. and Lezaun, J. (2014) Urban mosquitoes, situational publics, and the pursuit of interspecies separation in Dar es Salaam. American Ethnologist, 41 (2), 368–383.

Lezaun, J. and Calvillo, N. (2013) In the political laboratory: Kurt Lewin’s “Atmospheres”. Journal of Cultural Economy.

Woolgar, S. and Lezaun, J. (2013) The wrong bin bag: a turn to ontology in science and technology studies? Social Studies of Science, 43(3), 321-340.

Lezaun, J. and Kelly, A. (2013) Walking or waiting? Topologies of the breeding ground in malaria control. Science as Culture, 22(1), 86-107.

Lezaun, J., Muniesa, F. and Vikkelsø, S. (2013) Provocative containment and the drift of social-scientific realism. Journal of Cultural Economy, 6(4).

Lezaun, J. (2012) The pragmatic sanction of materials: notes for an ethnography of legal substances. Journal of Law and Society 39(1): 20-38.

Lezaun, J. and Schneider, T. (2012) Endless qualifications, restless consumption: the governance of novel foods in Europe. Science as Culture (forthcoming).

Lezaun, J. (2011) Offshore democracy: launch and landfall of a socio-technical experiment. Economy and Society 40(4): 553-581.

Marres, N. and Lezaun, J. (2011) Materials and devices of the public: an introduction. Economy and Society 40(4): 489-509.

Lezaun, J. (2011) Bees, beekeepers and bureaucrats: parasitism and the politics of transgenic life. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29(4): 738–756.

Lezaun, J. (2010) Eloquence and incommensurability: an investigation into the grammar of irreconcilable differences.Social Studies of Science 40(3): 349-375.

Lezaun, J. (2008) Self-contained bioethics and the politics of prohibition. Law, Culture and the Humanities 4(3): 323–338.

Lezaun, J. (2007) A market of opinions: the political epistemology of focus groups. Sociological Review 55(2): 130-151 [Also published in M. Callon, Y. Millo and F.Muniesa (eds.) Market Devices. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.].

Lezaun, J. and Soneryd, L. (2007) Consulting citizens: technologies of elicitation and he mobility of publics. Public Understanding of Science 16(3): 279-297.

Lezaun, J. (2006) Creating a new object of government: making genetically modified organisms traceable. Social Studies of Science 36(4): 499-531.

Lezaun, J. and Groenleer, M. (2006) Food control emergencies and the territorialization of the European Union. Journal of European Integration 28(5): 437-455.

Lezaun, J. and Millo, Y. (2006) Regulatory experiments: GM crops and financial derivatives on trial. Science and Public Policy 33(3): 179-190

Edited books

Bountra, C., Lee, WenHwa, and Lezaun, J. (2017). A New Pharmaceutical Commons: Transforming Drug Discovery. Oxford: Oxford Martin School.

Lezaun, J. and Sarat, A. (eds.) (2009) Catastrophe: Law, politics and the humanitarian impulse. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009.

Book chapters

Lezaun, J. (2018). The Public’s Two Bodies: Food Activism in Digital Media. In Schneider, T., Eli, K., Dolan, C., and Ulijaszek, S. (Eds.). Digital Food Activism. London: Routledge.

Lezaun, J. (2017). Actor-Network Theory. In C. Benzecry, M. Krause and I. Reed (eds.) Social Theory Now. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 305-336.

Barandiaran, X. and Lezaun, J. (2017) The Mondragon Experience. In: J Michie et al (ed) Oxford Handbook of Co-operative and Mutual Business. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lezaun, J.,Marres, N., and Tironi, M. (2016) Experiments in Participation. In: Clark et al (eds.) The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 4th Edition. Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press.

Lezaun, J. (2013) The ergonomics of democracy. In: K. Cupers (ed.) User matters: an alternative history of architecture. London: Routledge.

Rubio, F. D. and Lezaun, J. (2011) Technology, legal knowledge and citizenship: on the care of Locked-in Syndrome patients. In: P. Baert and F.D. Rubio (eds.) The politics of knowledge. London: Routledge, 2011, 58-78.

Lezaun, J. (2010) Bioethics and the risk regulation of 'frontier research': the case of gene therapy. In: B. Hutter (ed.) Anticipating risk and organising risk regulation. Cambridge University Press, 2010, 208-230.

Reviews and Commentaries

Lezaun, J. (2015) Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria, by Kristin Peterson, Somatosphere

Lezaun, J. (2015) Democracy in America 3D. Journal of Cultural Economy.

Lezaun, J. (2013) The escalating politics of 'Big Biology'. BioSocieties, 8, 480-485.

Other

Lezaun, J. (2014) Iconoclasm in the supermarket. Limn, Issue 4.