Michelle Murphy (born 1969) is a Canadian

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

. She is a professor of history and women and gender studies at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and director of the Technoscience Research Unit. Murphy is well known for her work on regimes of imperceptibility, the ways in which different forms of knowledge become visible or invisible in the scientific community and broader society. Murphy has published several books, including ''Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers'' (2006) which won the

Ludwik Fleck Prize The Ludwik Fleck Prize is an annual award given for a book in the field of science and technology studies. It was created by the 4S Council (Society for the Social Studies of Science) in 1992 and is named after microbiologist Ludwik Fleck Ludw ...

from the

Society for Social Studies of Science The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is a non-profit scholarly association devoted to the social studies of science and technology (STS). It was founded in 1975 and as of 2008 its international membership exceeds 1,200. In 2016, over ...

, ''Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience'' (2012), and ''The Economization of Life'' (2017).

Early life and education

Claudette Michelle Murphy was born in 1969 and grew up in

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

. Her family background includes

Metis Metis or Métis may refer to: Ethnic groups * Métis, recognized Indigenous communities in Canada and America whose distinct culture and language emerged after early intermarriage between First Nations peoples and early European settlers, prima ...

and French heritage. Murphy was inspired by the work of feminists in science in the mid-eighties, including

Donna Haraway Donna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies. Sh ...

and

Ruth Hubbard Ruth Hubbard (March 3, 1924 – September 1, 2016) was a professor of biology at Harvard University, where she was the first woman to hold a tenured professorship position in biology. During her active research career from the 1940s to the 1960s ...

. She earned a bachelor's degree in Biology and History and Philosophy of Science and Technology from the

in 1992. She earned a Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1998. Her experience at Harvard led her to incorporate analysis of whiteness explicitly into her work on science. In the 1990s, Murphy worked with

Evelynn M. Hammonds Evelynn Maxine Hammonds (born 1953) is an American feminist and scholar. She is the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University, and former Dean of Har ...

and her working group on race and science at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. From 1996-2007, she edited RaceSci, a website on anti-racist studies in science, medicine, and technology. With Adele Clarke and others at the

Society for the Social Studies of Science The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is a non-profit scholarly association devoted to the social studies of science and technology (STS). It was founded in 1975 and as of 2008 its international membership exceeds 1,200. In 2016, over ...

, she organized panels on race and science.

Career

Murphy is interested in asking the question "What can feminist technoscience be?" She studies the recent history of science and technology with particular attention to

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

, the

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

, and

reproduction Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual or ...

, with an awareness of

colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

, and queer theory. She focuses on

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

, and issues around chemical exposure,

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...

, and

reproductive justice Reproductive justice is a critical feminist framework that was invented as a response to United States reproductive politics. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the righ ...

. ''Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Illness in Modern Environments'', which she co-edited with Gregg Mitman and Chris Sellers in 2004, has been called "a foundational volume in bringing historical and social science perspectives to bear on the intersection of place and disease." Murphy is known for the concept of regimes of imperceptibility, a framework for examining the ways in which different forms of knowledge become visible or invisible within scientific communities and society. She develops these ideas in ''Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers'' (2006). She traces the history of

sick building syndrome Sick building syndrome (SBS) is an unsubstantiated diagnosis where health problems are attributed to buildings. The cause of the health problems are unknown. Symptoms attributed to SBS may or may not be a direct result of inadequate cleaning or ...

(SBS), a diagnosis applied to mass health complaints by office workers for which no cause can be identified. She closely examines the ways in which the identification of a new disease was affected by "a congeries of unlikely forces" including both scientific and social factors. The identification and acceptance of SBS, an inherently uncertain diagnosis, involves gender, race, and power dynamics within "normal science." This raises the question "How do we come to presence the effects of capitalism in our lives, and how are those effects invisibilized?" She also looks at the presentation of information in ways that drew on traditions from the labor and feminist movements. The framework she introduces can be used by anthropological researchers for complex biopolitical analysis. She received the

(2008) from the

for this book. Murphy is also the author of ''Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience'' (2012). Her starting point is the work of radical feminists in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, who advocated for alternative health techniques and feminist clinics. She goes on to place these developments in a broader framework, examining relationships between feminism,

imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

, capitalism,

population control Population control is the practice of artificially maintaining the size of any population. It simply refers to the act of limiting the size of an animal population so that it remains manageable, as opposed to the act of protecting a species from ...

, and

neoliberalism Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...

. It is applauded for identifying critical junctures that were previously overlooked, and for its elegant examination of how the "economy of reproduction" operates in both developed and developing worlds. Murphy has said: Murphy continues to work on "Distributed Reproduction," a theorization of reproduction that would extend beyond the individual. Her book ''The Economization of Life'' (2017) explores the 20th century rise of techniques to value life based on economic and biopolitical concerns. Murphy examines the techniques and epistemologies that have been used to describe and connect ideas of populations and economics in the United States and Bangladesh. This book was awarded the Ludwik Fleck Prize, making Murphy the first person to receive the award multiple times. Murphy is also working on "Alterlife in the Ongoing Aftermaths of Industrial Chemicals," an examination of the transgenerational effects of environmental damage from industrial chemicals in the

Great Lakes region The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...

Books

* * * *

Awards

* Geddes W. Simpson Distinguished Lecturer,

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...

, 2010 * Jackman Humanities Research Fellow, 2009-2010 * Ludwik Fleck Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science, 2008 * Michelle Clayman Gender Research Institute Senior Research Fellowship, Stanford, 2007-2008 *Ludwik Fleck Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science, 2019 *Royal Society of Canada

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Michelle 1969 births Living people Historians of science Philosophers of science Canadian women historians Canadian historians Canadian philosophers Canadian women philosophers Harvard University alumni University of Toronto alumni Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada