Imperial Technoscience ― Transnational Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India

The origin of modern science is often located in Europe and the West. ThisEuro/West-centrism relegates emergent practices elsewhere to the periphery, undergirding analyses ofcontemporary transnational science and technology with traditional but now untenable hierarchicalcategories. In this book, Amit Prasad examines features of transnationality in science andtechnology through a study of MRI research and development in the United States, Britain, and India.In an analysis that is both theoretically nuanced and empirically robust, Prasad unravels theentangled genealogies of MRI research, practice, and culture in these three countries. Prasadfollows sociotechnical trails in relation to five aspects of MRI research: invention, industrialdevelopment, market, history, and culture. He first examines the well-known dispute between Americanscientists Paul Lauterbur and Raymond Damadian over the invention of MRI, then describes thepost-invention emergence of the technology, as the center of MRI research shifted from Britain tothe U.S; the marketing of the MRI and the transformation of MRI research into a corporate-powered"Big Science"; and MRI research in India, beginning with work in India's nuclear magneticresonance (NMR) laboratories in the 1940s. Finally, he explores the different dominanttechnocultures in each of the three countries, analyzing scientific cultures as shifting products oftransnational histories rather than static products of national scientific identities and cultures.Prasad's analysis offers not only an innovative contribution to current debates within science andtechnology studies but also an original postcolonial perspective on the history of cutting-edgemedical technology.

Amit Prasad is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri--Columbia.