Publications by category
Books
Davies G, Greenhough B, Hobon-West P, Kirk RGW, Palmer A, Roe E (2024).
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Abstract:
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare
Abstract.
Davies G, Greenhough B, Hobon-West P, Kirk RGW, Palmer A, Roe E (2024).
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Abstract:
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare
Abstract.
Journal articles
Grimm H, Biller-Andorno N, Buch T, Dalhoff M, Davies G, Cederroth C, Maissen O, Passini E, Törnqvist E, Olsson A, et al (2023). Advancing the 3Rs: Innovation, implementation, ethics and society.
Frontiers in Veterinary ScienceAbstract:
Advancing the 3Rs: Innovation, implementation, ethics and society
The 3Rs principle of replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals in science has been gaining widespread support in the international research community and appears in transnational legislation such as the European Directive 2010/63/EU, a number of national legislative frameworks, and other rules and guidance in place in countries around the world. At the same time, progress in technical and biomedical research, along with the changing status of animals in many societies, challenges the view of the 3Rs principle as a sufficient and effective approach to the moral challenges set by animal use in research. Given this growing awareness of our moral responsibilities to animals, the aim of this paper is to address the question: can the 3Rs, as a policy instrument for science and research, still guide the morally acceptable use of animals for scientific purposes, and if so, how? the fact that the increased availability of alternatives to animal models has not correlated inversely with a decrease in the numbers of animals used in research has led to public and political calls for more radical action. However, a focus on the simple measure of total animal numbers distracts from the need for a more nuanced understanding of how the 3Rs principle can have genuine influence as a guiding instrument in research and testing. Hence, we focus on three core dimensions of the 3Rs in contemporary research: (1) What scientific innovations are needed to advance the goals of the 3Rs? (2) What can be done to facilitate the implementation of existing and new 3R methods? (3) Do the 3Rs still offer an adequate ethical framework given the increasing social awareness of animal needs and human moral responsibilities? By answering these questions, we will identify core perspectives in the debate over the advancement of the 3Rs.
Abstract.
Palmer A, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Davies G, Message R (2023). What Do Scientists Mean When They Talk About Research Animals “Volunteering”?. Society and Animals, 1-22.
Gorman R, Davies G (2023). When 'cultures of care' meet: entanglements and accountabilities at the intersection of animal research and patient involvement in the UK.
SOCIAL & CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY,
24(1), 121-139.
Author URL.
Greenhough B, Davies G, Bowlby S (2022). Why ‘cultures of care’?. Social & Cultural Geography, 24(1), 1-10.
Davies G (2021). Locating the ‘culture wars’ in laboratory animal research: national constitutions and global competition.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAbstract:
Locating the ‘culture wars’ in laboratory animal research: national constitutions and global competition
The increasingly global scope of biomedical research and testing using animals is generating disagreement over the best way to regulate laboratory animal science and care. Despite many common aims, the practices through which political and epistemic authority are allocated in the regulations around animal research varies internationally, coming together in what can be identified as different national constitutions. Tensions between these periodically erupt within the laboratory animal research community as a ‘cultural war’ between those favouring centralised control and those advocating local flexibility. Drawing on long-term engagement with key events and actors in these policy debates, I propose these national differences in the constitution of animal research can be understood through the intersection of two key variables: i) the location of institutional responsibility to permit research projects and ii) the distribution of epistemic authority to shape research practices. These variables are used to explain the development of different policy frameworks in the UK, Europe, and the USA, and identify where there is convergence and divergence in practice. Concluding, I suggest the way these approaches are combined and enacted in different countries reflects different national civic epistemologies, which are coming into conflict in the increasingly global networks of laboratory animal science.
Abstract.
Davies G, Gorman R, McGlacken R, Peres S (2021). The social aspects of genome editing: Publics as stakeholders, populations, and participants in animal research.
Laboratory AnimalsAbstract:
The social aspects of genome editing: Publics as stakeholders, populations, and participants in animal research
The application of genome editing to animal research connects to a wide variety of policy concerns and public conversations. We suggest focusing narrowly on public opinion of genome editing is to overlook the range of positions from which people are brought into relationships with animal research through these technologies. In this paper, we explore three key roles that publics are playing in the development of genome editing techniques applied to animals in biomedical research. First, publics are positioned by surveys and focus groups as stakeholders with opinions that matter to the development of research technologies. Learning lessons from controversies over genetically modified food in Europe, these methods are used to identify problems in science-society relations that need to be managed. Second, people are recruited into research projects through participating in biobanks and providing data, where their contributions are encouraged by appeals to the public good and maintained by public confidence. Thirdly, patients are increasingly taking positions within research governance, as lay reviewers on funding panels, where their expertise helps align research priorities and practices with public expectations of research. These plural publics do not easily aggregate into a simple or singular public opinion on genome editing. We conclude by suggesting more attention is needed to the multiple roles that different publics expect – and are expected – to play in the future development of genomic technologies.
Abstract.
Davies G, Gorman R, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Kirk RGW, Message R, Dmitriy M, Palmer A, Roe E, Ashall V, et al (2020). The Animal Research Nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health, and animal welfare.
Medical HumanitiesAbstract:
The Animal Research Nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health, and animal welfare
Animals used in biological research and testing have become integrated into the trajectories of modern biomedicine, generating increased expectations for and connections between human and animal health. Animal research also remains controversial and its acceptability is contingent on a complex network of relations and assurances across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law and informal or assumed. In this paper, we propose these entanglements can be studied through an approach that understands animal research as a nexus spanning the domains of science, health and animal welfare. We introduce this argument through, first, outlining some key challenges in UK debates around animal research, and second, reviewing the way nexus concepts have been used to connect issues in environmental research. Third, we explore how existing social sciences and humanities scholarship on animal research tends to focus on different aspects of the connections between scientific research, human health and animal welfare, which we suggest can be combined in a nexus approach. In the fourth section, we introduce our collaborative research on the animal research nexus, indicating how this approach can be used to study the history, governance and changing sensibilities around UK laboratory animal research. We suggest the attention to complex connections in nexus approaches can be enriched through conversations with the social sciences and medical humanities in ways that deepen appreciation of the importance of path-dependency and contingency, inclusion and exclusion in governance and the affective dimension to research. In conclusion, we reflect on the value of nexus thinking for developing research that is interdisciplinary, interactive and reflexive in understanding how accounts of the histories and current relations of animal research have significant implications for how scientific practices, policy debates and broad social contracts around animal research are being remade today.
Abstract.
Joseph M, Neely AH, Davies GF, Sparke M, Craddock S (2019). Compound Solutions: Pharmaceutical Alternatives for Global Health.
AAG Review of Books,
7(1), 47-58.
Author URL.
Lowe J, Leonelli S, Davies G (2019). Training to translate: Understanding and informing translational animal research in pre-clinical pharmacology. Tecnoscienza : Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 10 (2), 5-30.
Davies GF (2018). Harm-Benefit Analysis: Opportunities for enhancing ethical review in animal research. LabAnimal
Davies GF, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Kirk R (2018). Science, Culture, and Care in Laboratory Animal Research: Interdisciplinary perspectives on the history and future of the 3Rs. Science, Technology, and Human Values
Niemi S, Davies GF (2016). Animal Research, the 3Rs, and the “internet of things”: Opportunities and Oversight in International Pharmaceutical Development. Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) Journal
Davies GF, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Kirk R, et al (2016). Developing a collaborative agenda for humanities and social scientific research on laboratory animal science and welfare.
PLoS OneAbstract:
Developing a collaborative agenda for humanities and social scientific research on laboratory animal science and welfare
Improving laboratory animal science and welfare requires both new scientific research and insights from research in the humanities and social sciences. Whilst scientific research provides evidence to replace, reduce and refine procedures involving laboratory animals (the ‘3Rs’), work in the humanities and social sciences can help understand the social, economic and cultural processes that enhance or impede humane ways of knowing and working with laboratory animals. However, communication across these disciplinary perspectives is currently limited, and they design research programmes, generate results, engage users, and seek to influence policy in different ways. To facilitate dialogue and future research at this interface, we convened an interdisciplinary group of 45 life scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers to generate a collaborative research agenda. This drew on methods employed by other agenda-setting exercises in science policy, using a collaborative and deliberative approach for the identification of research priorities. Participants were recruited from across the community, invited to submit research questions and vote on their priorities. They then met at an interactive workshop in the UK, discussed all 136 questions submitted, and collectively defined the 30 most important issues for the group. The output is a collaborative future agenda for research in the humanities and social sciences on laboratory animal science and welfare. The questions indicate a demand for new research in the humanities and social sciences to inform emerging discussions and priorities on the governance and practice of laboratory animal research, including on issues around: international harmonisation, openness and public engagement, ‘cultures of care’, harm-benefit analysis and the future of the 3Rs. The process outlined below underlines the value of interdisciplinary exchange for improving communication across different research cultures and identifies ways of enhancing the effectiveness of future research at the interface between the humanities, social sciences, science and science policy.
Abstract.
Leonelli S, Rappert B, Davies GF (2016). Introduction: Data Shadows: Knowledge, Openness and Absence. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 42, 191-202.
Whitehead M (2016). Neuro: the new brain sciences and the management of the mind by Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013, 352 pp, $27.95/£19.95 paperback ISBN 9780691149615. Area, 48(1), 122-122.
Davies GF (2016). Remapping the brain: towards a spatial epistemology of the neurosciences. Area, 48, 125-125.
Davies GF, Mackay A (2014). Introducing Geo: Geography and Environment. Geo: Geography and Environment
Davies GF, Dwyer C (2014). Qualitative methods III: animating archives, artful interventions and online environments. , 4
Davies GF (2014). Searching for GloFish™: Aesthetics, Ethics and Encounters with the Neon Baroque.
Environment and Planning A: international journal of urban and regional research,
46(11), 2604-2621.
Abstract:
Searching for GloFish™: Aesthetics, Ethics and Encounters with the Neon Baroque
Fluorescent zebrafish are the first genetically-modified animals globally, if unevenly, circulated outside of laboratory environments. GloFish™ were developed in Singapore. They are widely sold as popular pets in the United States, but their public sale is banned in Europe and elsewhere. On the trail of these animals, I trace a fragmentary biogeography through ethnographic encounters in the spaces of scientific research, animal exhibits, pet stores and art galleries, in Europe, the USA and Singapore. At each site, as the colour, light and intensities of neon flicker with the potential for life, and concern for animal lives move in and out of focus, I ask: what is the proper way of knowing and living with genetically-altered zebrafish? to ask the question is to open up a conversation about the changing constitution of science and space, representation and reproduction in relation to these new forms of life. To try to answer it demands attention to a baroque patterning of scientific practices, aesthetic sensibilities, ethical responsibilities and political spatialities. In a discursive arena typically characterised by narratives of linearity – whether of scientific progress or slippery slopes – I suggest the affective sensibilities, theatrical qualities and unresolved elements of the baroque offer powerful, if ambivalent, resources for reflection on the intersection between the animating aesthetics and turbulent ethics of postgenomic life
Abstract.
Davies GF (2013). Arguably big biology: Sociology, spatiality and the knockout mouse project.
Biosocieties,
4(8), 417-431.
Abstract:
Arguably big biology: Sociology, spatiality and the knockout mouse project
Following the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP), a critical challenge has been how to make biological sense of the amassed sequence data and translate this into clinical applications. A range of large biological research projects, as well as more distributed experimental collaborations, are seeking to realise this through translational research initiatives and postgenomic approaches. Drawing on interviews with key participants, this article explores the biological assumptions, sociological challenges and spatial imaginaries at play in arguments around one of these developments, which is using genetically altered mice to understand gene function. The knockout mouse project (KOMP) is a large-scale initiative in functional genomics, seeking to produce a ‘knockout mouse’ for each gene in the mouse’s genome, which can then be used to answer questions about gene function in mammals. KOMP is frequently framed as one successor to the HGP, emblematic of the ambitions of internationally coordinated biological research. However, the development of new technologies for generating and managing genetically altered mice, alongside the challenge of asking biologically meaningful questions of vast numbers of animals, is creating new frictions in this extension and intensification of biological research practices. This article introduces two separate approaches to the future of international research using mutant mice as stakeholders to negotiate the biological, sociological and spatial challenges of collaboration. The first centres on the directed research practices and sociological assumptions of KOMP, as individual researchers are reorganised around shared animals, databases and infrastructures. The second highlights an alternative vision of the future of biomedical research, using distributed management to enhance the sensitivities and efficiencies of existing experimental practices over space. These exemplify two different tactics in the organisation of an ‘arguably’ big biology. They also critically embody different sociological and spatial imaginaries for the collaborative practices of international translational research.
Abstract.
Frow E, Leonelli S, Davies GF (2013). Bigger, Faster, Better? Rhetorics and Practices of Large-Scale Research in Contemporary Bioscience. BioSocieties, 8(4), 386-396.
Davies GF (2013). Mobilizing Experimental Life: Spaces of Becoming with Mutant Mice.
Theory, Culture and Society: explorations in critical social science,
30, 129-153.
Abstract:
Mobilizing Experimental Life: Spaces of Becoming with Mutant Mice
This paper uses the figure of the inbred laboratory mouse to reflect upon the management and mobilization of biological difference in the contemporary biosciences. Working through the concept of shifting experimental systems, the paper seeks to connect practices concerned with standardization and control in contemporary research with the emergent and stochastic qualities of biological life. Specifically, it reviews the importance of historical narratives of standardization in experimental systems based around model organisms, before identifying a tension in contemporary accounts of the reproduction and differentiation of inbred mouse strains within them. Firstly, narratives of new strain development, foregrounding personal biography and chance discovery, attest to the contingency and situatedness of apparently universal biotechnological production. Secondly, discoveries of unexpected animal litters challenge efforts to standardize mouse phenotypes and control the reproduction of murine strains over space. The co-existence of these two narratives draws attention to the importance of and interplay between both chance and control, determination and emergence, and the making and moving of experimental life in biomedical research. The reception or denial of such biological excess reflects the distribution of agencies and the emerging spatialities of the global infrastructures of biotechnological development, with implications for future relations between animal lives and human becomings in experimental practices
Abstract.
Davies G (2013). Writing biology with mutant mice: the monstrous potential of post genomic life. Geoforum, 48, 268-278.
DAVIES G (2012). Caring for the multiple and the multitude: assembling animal welfare and enabling ethical critique. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30, 623-638.
Fearnley CJ, McGuire WJ, Davies G, Twigg J (2012). Standardisation of the USGS Volcano Alert Level System (VALS): analysis and ramifications. Bulletin of Volcanology, 74, 2023-2036.
Davies G (2012). What is a humanized mouse? Remaking the species and spaces of translational medicine.
Body & Society,
18, 126-155.
Author URL.
Greenhough B, Lorimer J, Davies G (2011). Corporal compassion: animal ethics and the philosophy of the body. ENVIRON PLANN D, 29, 188-190.
Davies G (2011). Playing dice with mice: building experimental futures in Singapore. New Genetics and Society, 30, 433-441.
Bourke J, Greenhough B, Lorimer J, Davies G (2011). Review: Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence, Corporal Compassion: Animal Ethics and the Philosophy of the Body. Environment and Planning D Society and Space, 29(1), 187-190.
Davies G (2010). Captivating behaviour: mouse models, experimental genetics and reductionist returns in the neurosciences. The Sociological Review, 58, 53-72.
Lorimer J, Davies G, Hinchliffe S, Hird M, Greenhough B, Roe E, Beisel U, Loftus A, Haraway D (2010). Collaborative book review of ‘When species meet’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28, 32-55.
Dwyer C, Davies G (2010). Qualitative methods III: animating archives, artful interventions and online environments. Progress in Human Geography, 34, 88-97.
Lorimer J, Davies G, Hinchliffe S, Hird MJ, Greenhough B, Roe E, Beisel U, Loftus A, Haraway D (2010). When species meet.
ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING D-SOCIETY & SPACE,
28(1), 32-55.
Author URL.
Davies GF (2010). Where do experiments end?. Geoforum, 41, 667-670.
Davies G, Dwyer C (2008). Qualitative methods II: minding the gap. Progress in Human Geography, 32, 399-406.
Davies G (2008). Thinking, Reasoning and Writing with Animals in the Biosciences. BioSocieties, 3(4), 446-451.
Davies GF (2008). Thinking, Reasoning and Writing with Animals in the Biosciences: book review essay. BioSocieties, 3, 446-451.
Burgess J, Stirling A, Clark J, Davies G, Eames M, Staley K, Williamson S (2007). Deliberative mapping: a novel analytic-deliberative methodology to support contested science-policy decisions.
Public Understanding of Science,
16, 299-322.
Author URL.
Davies G, Dwyer C (2007). Qualitative methods: are you enchanted or are you alienated?.
Progress in Human Geography,
31, 257-266.
Author URL.
Davies G (2007). The funny business of biotechnology: better living through (chemistry) comedy. Geoforum, 38, 221-223.
Davies G (2006). Mapping deliberation: calculation, articulation and intervention in the politics of organ transplantation. Economy and Society, 35, 232-258.
Davies G (2006). Nature performed: environment, culture and performance. Cultural Geographies, 13, 476-477.
Davies G (2006). Patterning the geographies of organ transplantation: corporeality, generosity and justice. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 31, 257-271.
Davies G (2006). The sacred and the profane: biotechnology, rationality, and public debate.
Environment and Planning A,
38, 423-443.
Author URL.
Davies G, Burgess J (2004). 'Challenging the view from nowhere’: citizen reflections on specialist expertise in a deliberative process. Health & place, 10, 349-361.
Davies G, Day R, Williamson S (2004). The geography of health knowledge/s. Health and Place, 10, 293-297.
Davies G (2003). A geography of monsters?. Geoforum, 34, 409-412.
Harrison C, Davies G (2002). Conserving biodiversity that matters: practitioners’ perspectives on brownfield development and urban nature conservation in London. Journal of Environmental Management, 65, 95-108.
Davies G (2000). Narrating the Natural History Unit: institutional orderings and spatial strategies. Geoforum, 31, 539-551.
Davies G (2000). Science, observation and entertainment: competing visions of postwar British natural history television, 1946-1967. Cultural Geographies, 7, 432-460.
Davies G (1999). Exploiting the archive: and the animals came in two by two, 16mm, CD-ROM and BetaSp. Area, 31, 49-58.
Chapters
Davies G, Gorman R, Milne R (2024). Fabricating mice and dementia: opening up relations in multi-species research. In Jenkins N, Jack-Waugh A, Ritchie L (Eds.)
Multi-Species Dementia Studies: Towards an Interdisciplinary
Approach, Bristol University Press.
Abstract:
Fabricating mice and dementia: opening up relations in multi-species research
Abstract.
Davies GF, Gorman R, Crudgington B (2019). Which patient takes centre stage? Placing patient voices in animal research. In Atkinson S, Hunt R (Eds.)
GeoHumanities and Health, Springer, 141-155.
Abstract:
Which patient takes centre stage? Placing patient voices in animal research
Abstract.
Author URL.
Davies GF, Scalway H (2018). Diagramming. In Lury C, Fensham R, Heller-Nicholas A, Lammes S, Last A, Michael M, Uprichard E (Eds.)
Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research Methods, Routledge.
Abstract:
Diagramming
Abstract.
Davies G (2011). Molecular Life. In Del Casino Jr V, Thomas M, Cloke P, Pannelli R (Eds.) A Companion to Social Geography, Wiley Blackwell, 257-274.
Davies GF (2010). Captivating behaviour: mouse models, experimental genetics and reductionist returns in the neurosciences. In Parry S, Dupre J (Eds.) Nature After the Genome, Wiley-Blackwell, 52-72.
Davies GF (2008). Science, observation and entertainment: competing visions of post-war British natural history television, 1946-1967. In (Ed) Contemporary Foundations of Space and Place – Culture and Society: Critical Essays in Human Geography, Ashgate Press, 387-416.
Davies GF (2005). Exploiting the archive: and the animals came in two by two, 16mm, CD-Rom and BetaSP Area. In Thrift N, Whatmore S (Eds.) Cultural Geography: Critical concepts, Routledge.
Davies GF (2004). Wildlife. In Harrison S, Pile S, Thrift N (Eds.) Patterned Ground: ecologies of nature and culture London, Reaktion Press, 255-258.
Burgess J, Bedford T, Hobson K, Davies G, Harrison C (2003). (Un)sustainable consumption. In Berkhout F, Leach M, Scoones I (Eds.) Negotiating Environmental Change: New perspectives from social science, Edward Elgar, 261-291.
Davies G (2003). Researching the networks of natural history film-making. In Blunt A, Gruffudd P, May J, Ogborn M, Pinder D (Eds.) Cultural Geography in Practice, London: Edward Arnold, 202-217.
Davies G (2000). Virtual animals in electronic zoos: the changing geographies of animal capture and display. In Philo C, Wilbert C (Eds.) Animal Spaces, Beastly Places, London: Routledge, 243-267.
Reports
Davies G, Gorman R, King G (2022).
Informing Involvement around Animal Research.Abstract:
Informing Involvement around Animal Research
Abstract.
Gorman R, Davies G (2019). Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) with animal research.
Davies GF, Golledge H, Hawkins P, Rowland A, Smith J, Wolfensohn S (2017).
Review of harm-benefit analysis. in the use of animals in research. Animals in Science Committee, London, Home Office. 87 pages.
Abstract:
Review of harm-benefit analysis. in the use of animals in research
Abstract.
Lowe JWE, Collis M, Davies G, Leonelli S, Lewis DI, Zecharia AY (2016). An Evaluation of the Integrative Pharmacology Fund: Lessons for the future of in vivo education & training. British Pharmacological Society, London.
Davies G, Burgess J, Eames M, Mayer S, Staley K, Stirling A, Williamson S (2003). Deliberative Mapping: Appraising Options for Addressing ‘the Kidney Gap’.
Murlis J, Davies G, others (2001). Public perception of the health impacts of climate change., Department of Health. 4 pages.
Harrison C, Davies G (1998). Lifestyles and the Environment., ESRC.
Publications by year
2024
Davies G, Gorman R, Milne R (2024). Fabricating mice and dementia: opening up relations in multi-species research. In Jenkins N, Jack-Waugh A, Ritchie L (Eds.)
Multi-Species Dementia Studies: Towards an Interdisciplinary
Approach, Bristol University Press.
Abstract:
Fabricating mice and dementia: opening up relations in multi-species research
Abstract.
Davies G, Greenhough B, Hobon-West P, Kirk RGW, Palmer A, Roe E (2024).
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Abstract:
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare
Abstract.
Davies G, Greenhough B, Hobon-West P, Kirk RGW, Palmer A, Roe E (2024).
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Abstract:
Researching Animal Research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare
Abstract.
2023
Grimm H, Biller-Andorno N, Buch T, Dalhoff M, Davies G, Cederroth C, Maissen O, Passini E, Törnqvist E, Olsson A, et al (2023). Advancing the 3Rs: Innovation, implementation, ethics and society.
Frontiers in Veterinary ScienceAbstract:
Advancing the 3Rs: Innovation, implementation, ethics and society
The 3Rs principle of replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals in science has been gaining widespread support in the international research community and appears in transnational legislation such as the European Directive 2010/63/EU, a number of national legislative frameworks, and other rules and guidance in place in countries around the world. At the same time, progress in technical and biomedical research, along with the changing status of animals in many societies, challenges the view of the 3Rs principle as a sufficient and effective approach to the moral challenges set by animal use in research. Given this growing awareness of our moral responsibilities to animals, the aim of this paper is to address the question: can the 3Rs, as a policy instrument for science and research, still guide the morally acceptable use of animals for scientific purposes, and if so, how? the fact that the increased availability of alternatives to animal models has not correlated inversely with a decrease in the numbers of animals used in research has led to public and political calls for more radical action. However, a focus on the simple measure of total animal numbers distracts from the need for a more nuanced understanding of how the 3Rs principle can have genuine influence as a guiding instrument in research and testing. Hence, we focus on three core dimensions of the 3Rs in contemporary research: (1) What scientific innovations are needed to advance the goals of the 3Rs? (2) What can be done to facilitate the implementation of existing and new 3R methods? (3) Do the 3Rs still offer an adequate ethical framework given the increasing social awareness of animal needs and human moral responsibilities? By answering these questions, we will identify core perspectives in the debate over the advancement of the 3Rs.
Abstract.
Palmer A, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Davies G, Message R (2023). What Do Scientists Mean When They Talk About Research Animals “Volunteering”?. Society and Animals, 1-22.
Gorman R, Davies G (2023). When 'cultures of care' meet: entanglements and accountabilities at the intersection of animal research and patient involvement in the UK.
SOCIAL & CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY,
24(1), 121-139.
Author URL.
2022
Davies G, Gorman R, King G (2022).
Informing Involvement around Animal Research.Abstract:
Informing Involvement around Animal Research
Abstract.
Greenhough B, Davies G, Bowlby S (2022). Why ‘cultures of care’?. Social & Cultural Geography, 24(1), 1-10.
2021
Davies G (2021). Locating the ‘culture wars’ in laboratory animal research: national constitutions and global competition.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAbstract:
Locating the ‘culture wars’ in laboratory animal research: national constitutions and global competition
The increasingly global scope of biomedical research and testing using animals is generating disagreement over the best way to regulate laboratory animal science and care. Despite many common aims, the practices through which political and epistemic authority are allocated in the regulations around animal research varies internationally, coming together in what can be identified as different national constitutions. Tensions between these periodically erupt within the laboratory animal research community as a ‘cultural war’ between those favouring centralised control and those advocating local flexibility. Drawing on long-term engagement with key events and actors in these policy debates, I propose these national differences in the constitution of animal research can be understood through the intersection of two key variables: i) the location of institutional responsibility to permit research projects and ii) the distribution of epistemic authority to shape research practices. These variables are used to explain the development of different policy frameworks in the UK, Europe, and the USA, and identify where there is convergence and divergence in practice. Concluding, I suggest the way these approaches are combined and enacted in different countries reflects different national civic epistemologies, which are coming into conflict in the increasingly global networks of laboratory animal science.
Abstract.
Davies G, Gorman R, McGlacken R, Peres S (2021). The social aspects of genome editing: Publics as stakeholders, populations, and participants in animal research.
Laboratory AnimalsAbstract:
The social aspects of genome editing: Publics as stakeholders, populations, and participants in animal research
The application of genome editing to animal research connects to a wide variety of policy concerns and public conversations. We suggest focusing narrowly on public opinion of genome editing is to overlook the range of positions from which people are brought into relationships with animal research through these technologies. In this paper, we explore three key roles that publics are playing in the development of genome editing techniques applied to animals in biomedical research. First, publics are positioned by surveys and focus groups as stakeholders with opinions that matter to the development of research technologies. Learning lessons from controversies over genetically modified food in Europe, these methods are used to identify problems in science-society relations that need to be managed. Second, people are recruited into research projects through participating in biobanks and providing data, where their contributions are encouraged by appeals to the public good and maintained by public confidence. Thirdly, patients are increasingly taking positions within research governance, as lay reviewers on funding panels, where their expertise helps align research priorities and practices with public expectations of research. These plural publics do not easily aggregate into a simple or singular public opinion on genome editing. We conclude by suggesting more attention is needed to the multiple roles that different publics expect – and are expected – to play in the future development of genomic technologies.
Abstract.
2020
Davies G, Gorman R, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Kirk RGW, Message R, Dmitriy M, Palmer A, Roe E, Ashall V, et al (2020). The Animal Research Nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health, and animal welfare.
Medical HumanitiesAbstract:
The Animal Research Nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health, and animal welfare
Animals used in biological research and testing have become integrated into the trajectories of modern biomedicine, generating increased expectations for and connections between human and animal health. Animal research also remains controversial and its acceptability is contingent on a complex network of relations and assurances across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law and informal or assumed. In this paper, we propose these entanglements can be studied through an approach that understands animal research as a nexus spanning the domains of science, health and animal welfare. We introduce this argument through, first, outlining some key challenges in UK debates around animal research, and second, reviewing the way nexus concepts have been used to connect issues in environmental research. Third, we explore how existing social sciences and humanities scholarship on animal research tends to focus on different aspects of the connections between scientific research, human health and animal welfare, which we suggest can be combined in a nexus approach. In the fourth section, we introduce our collaborative research on the animal research nexus, indicating how this approach can be used to study the history, governance and changing sensibilities around UK laboratory animal research. We suggest the attention to complex connections in nexus approaches can be enriched through conversations with the social sciences and medical humanities in ways that deepen appreciation of the importance of path-dependency and contingency, inclusion and exclusion in governance and the affective dimension to research. In conclusion, we reflect on the value of nexus thinking for developing research that is interdisciplinary, interactive and reflexive in understanding how accounts of the histories and current relations of animal research have significant implications for how scientific practices, policy debates and broad social contracts around animal research are being remade today.
Abstract.
2019
Joseph M, Neely AH, Davies GF, Sparke M, Craddock S (2019). Compound Solutions: Pharmaceutical Alternatives for Global Health.
AAG Review of Books,
7(1), 47-58.
Author URL.
Gorman R, Davies G (2019). Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) with animal research.
Lowe J, Leonelli S, Davies G (2019). Training to translate: Understanding and informing translational animal research in pre-clinical pharmacology. Tecnoscienza : Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 10 (2), 5-30.
Davies GF, Gorman R, Crudgington B (2019). Which patient takes centre stage? Placing patient voices in animal research. In Atkinson S, Hunt R (Eds.)
GeoHumanities and Health, Springer, 141-155.
Abstract:
Which patient takes centre stage? Placing patient voices in animal research
Abstract.
Author URL.
2018
Davies GF, Scalway H (2018). Diagramming. In Lury C, Fensham R, Heller-Nicholas A, Lammes S, Last A, Michael M, Uprichard E (Eds.)
Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research Methods, Routledge.
Abstract:
Diagramming
Abstract.
Davies GF (2018). Harm-Benefit Analysis: Opportunities for enhancing ethical review in animal research. LabAnimal
Davies GF, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Kirk R (2018). Science, Culture, and Care in Laboratory Animal Research: Interdisciplinary perspectives on the history and future of the 3Rs. Science, Technology, and Human Values
2017
Davies GF, Golledge H, Hawkins P, Rowland A, Smith J, Wolfensohn S (2017).
Review of harm-benefit analysis. in the use of animals in research. Animals in Science Committee, London, Home Office. 87 pages.
Abstract:
Review of harm-benefit analysis. in the use of animals in research
Abstract.
2016
Lowe JWE, Collis M, Davies G, Leonelli S, Lewis DI, Zecharia AY (2016). An Evaluation of the Integrative Pharmacology Fund: Lessons for the future of in vivo education & training. British Pharmacological Society, London.
Niemi S, Davies GF (2016). Animal Research, the 3Rs, and the “internet of things”: Opportunities and Oversight in International Pharmaceutical Development. Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) Journal
Davies GF, Greenhough B, Hobson-West P, Kirk R, et al (2016). Developing a collaborative agenda for humanities and social scientific research on laboratory animal science and welfare.
PLoS OneAbstract:
Developing a collaborative agenda for humanities and social scientific research on laboratory animal science and welfare
Improving laboratory animal science and welfare requires both new scientific research and insights from research in the humanities and social sciences. Whilst scientific research provides evidence to replace, reduce and refine procedures involving laboratory animals (the ‘3Rs’), work in the humanities and social sciences can help understand the social, economic and cultural processes that enhance or impede humane ways of knowing and working with laboratory animals. However, communication across these disciplinary perspectives is currently limited, and they design research programmes, generate results, engage users, and seek to influence policy in different ways. To facilitate dialogue and future research at this interface, we convened an interdisciplinary group of 45 life scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers to generate a collaborative research agenda. This drew on methods employed by other agenda-setting exercises in science policy, using a collaborative and deliberative approach for the identification of research priorities. Participants were recruited from across the community, invited to submit research questions and vote on their priorities. They then met at an interactive workshop in the UK, discussed all 136 questions submitted, and collectively defined the 30 most important issues for the group. The output is a collaborative future agenda for research in the humanities and social sciences on laboratory animal science and welfare. The questions indicate a demand for new research in the humanities and social sciences to inform emerging discussions and priorities on the governance and practice of laboratory animal research, including on issues around: international harmonisation, openness and public engagement, ‘cultures of care’, harm-benefit analysis and the future of the 3Rs. The process outlined below underlines the value of interdisciplinary exchange for improving communication across different research cultures and identifies ways of enhancing the effectiveness of future research at the interface between the humanities, social sciences, science and science policy.
Abstract.
Leonelli S, Rappert B, Davies GF (2016). Introduction: Data Shadows: Knowledge, Openness and Absence. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 42, 191-202.
Whitehead M (2016). Neuro: the new brain sciences and the management of the mind by Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013, 352 pp, $27.95/£19.95 paperback ISBN 9780691149615. Area, 48(1), 122-122.
Davies GF (2016). Remapping the brain: towards a spatial epistemology of the neurosciences. Area, 48, 125-125.
2015
Davies GF (2015). Reading alongside the pipeline. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 108-110.
2014
Davies GF, Mackay A (2014). Introducing Geo: Geography and Environment. Geo: Geography and Environment
Davies GF, Dwyer C (2014). Qualitative methods III: animating archives, artful interventions and online environments. , 4
Davies GF (2014). Searching for GloFish™: Aesthetics, Ethics and Encounters with the Neon Baroque.
Environment and Planning A: international journal of urban and regional research,
46(11), 2604-2621.
Abstract:
Searching for GloFish™: Aesthetics, Ethics and Encounters with the Neon Baroque
Fluorescent zebrafish are the first genetically-modified animals globally, if unevenly, circulated outside of laboratory environments. GloFish™ were developed in Singapore. They are widely sold as popular pets in the United States, but their public sale is banned in Europe and elsewhere. On the trail of these animals, I trace a fragmentary biogeography through ethnographic encounters in the spaces of scientific research, animal exhibits, pet stores and art galleries, in Europe, the USA and Singapore. At each site, as the colour, light and intensities of neon flicker with the potential for life, and concern for animal lives move in and out of focus, I ask: what is the proper way of knowing and living with genetically-altered zebrafish? to ask the question is to open up a conversation about the changing constitution of science and space, representation and reproduction in relation to these new forms of life. To try to answer it demands attention to a baroque patterning of scientific practices, aesthetic sensibilities, ethical responsibilities and political spatialities. In a discursive arena typically characterised by narratives of linearity – whether of scientific progress or slippery slopes – I suggest the affective sensibilities, theatrical qualities and unresolved elements of the baroque offer powerful, if ambivalent, resources for reflection on the intersection between the animating aesthetics and turbulent ethics of postgenomic life
Abstract.
2013
Davies GF (2013). Arguably big biology: Sociology, spatiality and the knockout mouse project.
Biosocieties,
4(8), 417-431.
Abstract:
Arguably big biology: Sociology, spatiality and the knockout mouse project
Following the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP), a critical challenge has been how to make biological sense of the amassed sequence data and translate this into clinical applications. A range of large biological research projects, as well as more distributed experimental collaborations, are seeking to realise this through translational research initiatives and postgenomic approaches. Drawing on interviews with key participants, this article explores the biological assumptions, sociological challenges and spatial imaginaries at play in arguments around one of these developments, which is using genetically altered mice to understand gene function. The knockout mouse project (KOMP) is a large-scale initiative in functional genomics, seeking to produce a ‘knockout mouse’ for each gene in the mouse’s genome, which can then be used to answer questions about gene function in mammals. KOMP is frequently framed as one successor to the HGP, emblematic of the ambitions of internationally coordinated biological research. However, the development of new technologies for generating and managing genetically altered mice, alongside the challenge of asking biologically meaningful questions of vast numbers of animals, is creating new frictions in this extension and intensification of biological research practices. This article introduces two separate approaches to the future of international research using mutant mice as stakeholders to negotiate the biological, sociological and spatial challenges of collaboration. The first centres on the directed research practices and sociological assumptions of KOMP, as individual researchers are reorganised around shared animals, databases and infrastructures. The second highlights an alternative vision of the future of biomedical research, using distributed management to enhance the sensitivities and efficiencies of existing experimental practices over space. These exemplify two different tactics in the organisation of an ‘arguably’ big biology. They also critically embody different sociological and spatial imaginaries for the collaborative practices of international translational research.
Abstract.
Frow E, Leonelli S, Davies GF (2013). Bigger, Faster, Better? Rhetorics and Practices of Large-Scale Research in Contemporary Bioscience. BioSocieties, 8(4), 386-396.
Davies GF (2013). Mobilizing Experimental Life: Spaces of Becoming with Mutant Mice.
Theory, Culture and Society: explorations in critical social science,
30, 129-153.
Abstract:
Mobilizing Experimental Life: Spaces of Becoming with Mutant Mice
This paper uses the figure of the inbred laboratory mouse to reflect upon the management and mobilization of biological difference in the contemporary biosciences. Working through the concept of shifting experimental systems, the paper seeks to connect practices concerned with standardization and control in contemporary research with the emergent and stochastic qualities of biological life. Specifically, it reviews the importance of historical narratives of standardization in experimental systems based around model organisms, before identifying a tension in contemporary accounts of the reproduction and differentiation of inbred mouse strains within them. Firstly, narratives of new strain development, foregrounding personal biography and chance discovery, attest to the contingency and situatedness of apparently universal biotechnological production. Secondly, discoveries of unexpected animal litters challenge efforts to standardize mouse phenotypes and control the reproduction of murine strains over space. The co-existence of these two narratives draws attention to the importance of and interplay between both chance and control, determination and emergence, and the making and moving of experimental life in biomedical research. The reception or denial of such biological excess reflects the distribution of agencies and the emerging spatialities of the global infrastructures of biotechnological development, with implications for future relations between animal lives and human becomings in experimental practices
Abstract.
Davies G (2013). Writing biology with mutant mice: the monstrous potential of post genomic life. Geoforum, 48, 268-278.
2012
DAVIES G (2012). Caring for the multiple and the multitude: assembling animal welfare and enabling ethical critique. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30, 623-638.
Davies GF, Scalway H (2012). MiceSpace.
Abstract:
MiceSpace
This website is a collaboration between artist Helen Scalway – whose art practice involves creating two and three dimensional visualisations of complex and dynamic contemporary spaces – and academic geographer Gail Davies – who studies how international biomedical researchers are collaborating in new ways and spaces using mice as model organisms.
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Author URL.
Fearnley CJ, McGuire WJ, Davies G, Twigg J (2012). Standardisation of the USGS Volcano Alert Level System (VALS): analysis and ramifications. Bulletin of Volcanology, 74, 2023-2036.
Davies G (2012). What is a humanized mouse? Remaking the species and spaces of translational medicine.
Body & Society,
18, 126-155.
Author URL.
2011
Greenhough B, Lorimer J, Davies G (2011). Corporal compassion: animal ethics and the philosophy of the body. ENVIRON PLANN D, 29, 188-190.
Davies G (2011). Molecular Life. In Del Casino Jr V, Thomas M, Cloke P, Pannelli R (Eds.) A Companion to Social Geography, Wiley Blackwell, 257-274.
Davies G (2011). Playing dice with mice: building experimental futures in Singapore. New Genetics and Society, 30, 433-441.
Bourke J, Greenhough B, Lorimer J, Davies G (2011). Review: Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence, Corporal Compassion: Animal Ethics and the Philosophy of the Body. Environment and Planning D Society and Space, 29(1), 187-190.
2010
Davies G (2010). Captivating behaviour: mouse models, experimental genetics and reductionist returns in the neurosciences. The Sociological Review, 58, 53-72.
Davies GF (2010). Captivating behaviour: mouse models, experimental genetics and reductionist returns in the neurosciences. In Parry S, Dupre J (Eds.) Nature After the Genome, Wiley-Blackwell, 52-72.
Lorimer J, Davies G, Hinchliffe S, Hird M, Greenhough B, Roe E, Beisel U, Loftus A, Haraway D (2010). Collaborative book review of ‘When species meet’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28, 32-55.
Dwyer C, Davies G (2010). Qualitative methods III: animating archives, artful interventions and online environments. Progress in Human Geography, 34, 88-97.
Lorimer J, Davies G, Hinchliffe S, Hird MJ, Greenhough B, Roe E, Beisel U, Loftus A, Haraway D (2010). When species meet.
ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING D-SOCIETY & SPACE,
28(1), 32-55.
Author URL.
Davies GF (2010). Where do experiments end?. Geoforum, 41, 667-670.
2009
Davies G (2009). The Geographies of knowledge’ Virtual issue of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
Author URL.
Web link.
2008
Davies G, Balmer B, Barker K, Doubleday R, Milne R (2008). Locating Technoscience: an on-line reader exploring the geographies of science and technology.
Author URL.
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Davies G, Dwyer C (2008). Qualitative methods II: minding the gap. Progress in Human Geography, 32, 399-406.
Davies GF (2008). Science, observation and entertainment: competing visions of post-war British natural history television, 1946-1967. In (Ed) Contemporary Foundations of Space and Place – Culture and Society: Critical Essays in Human Geography, Ashgate Press, 387-416.
Davies G (2008). Thinking, Reasoning and Writing with Animals in the Biosciences. BioSocieties, 3(4), 446-451.
Davies GF (2008). Thinking, Reasoning and Writing with Animals in the Biosciences: book review essay. BioSocieties, 3, 446-451.
2007
Burgess J, Stirling A, Clark J, Davies G, Eames M, Staley K, Williamson S (2007). Deliberative mapping: a novel analytic-deliberative methodology to support contested science-policy decisions.
Public Understanding of Science,
16, 299-322.
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Davies G, Dwyer C (2007). Qualitative methods: are you enchanted or are you alienated?.
Progress in Human Geography,
31, 257-266.
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Davies G (2007). The funny business of biotechnology: better living through (chemistry) comedy. Geoforum, 38, 221-223.
2006
Davies G (2006). Mapping deliberation: calculation, articulation and intervention in the politics of organ transplantation. Economy and Society, 35, 232-258.
Davies G (2006). Nature performed: environment, culture and performance. Cultural Geographies, 13, 476-477.
Davies G (2006). Patterning the geographies of organ transplantation: corporeality, generosity and justice. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 31, 257-271.
Davies G (2006). The sacred and the profane: biotechnology, rationality, and public debate.
Environment and Planning A,
38, 423-443.
Author URL.
2005
Davies GF (2005). Exploiting the archive: and the animals came in two by two, 16mm, CD-Rom and BetaSP Area. In Thrift N, Whatmore S (Eds.) Cultural Geography: Critical concepts, Routledge.
2004
Davies G, Burgess J (2004). 'Challenging the view from nowhere’: citizen reflections on specialist expertise in a deliberative process. Health & place, 10, 349-361.
Davies G, Day R, Williamson S (2004). The geography of health knowledge/s. Health and Place, 10, 293-297.
Davies GF (2004). Wildlife. In Harrison S, Pile S, Thrift N (Eds.) Patterned Ground: ecologies of nature and culture London, Reaktion Press, 255-258.
2003
Burgess J, Bedford T, Hobson K, Davies G, Harrison C (2003). (Un)sustainable consumption. In Berkhout F, Leach M, Scoones I (Eds.) Negotiating Environmental Change: New perspectives from social science, Edward Elgar, 261-291.
Davies G (2003). A geography of monsters?. Geoforum, 34, 409-412.
Davies G, Burgess J, Eames M, Mayer S, Staley K, Stirling A, Williamson S (2003). Deliberative Mapping: Appraising Options for Addressing ‘the Kidney Gap’.
Davies G (2003). Researching the networks of natural history film-making. In Blunt A, Gruffudd P, May J, Ogborn M, Pinder D (Eds.) Cultural Geography in Practice, London: Edward Arnold, 202-217.
2002
Harrison C, Davies G (2002). Conserving biodiversity that matters: practitioners’ perspectives on brownfield development and urban nature conservation in London. Journal of Environmental Management, 65, 95-108.
2001
Murlis J, Davies G, others (2001). Public perception of the health impacts of climate change., Department of Health. 4 pages.
2000
Davies G (2000). Narrating the Natural History Unit: institutional orderings and spatial strategies. Geoforum, 31, 539-551.
Davies G (2000). Science, observation and entertainment: competing visions of postwar British natural history television, 1946-1967. Cultural Geographies, 7, 432-460.
Davies G (2000). Virtual animals in electronic zoos: the changing geographies of animal capture and display. In Philo C, Wilbert C (Eds.) Animal Spaces, Beastly Places, London: Routledge, 243-267.
1999
Davies G (1999). Exploiting the archive: and the animals came in two by two, 16mm, CD-ROM and BetaSp. Area, 31, 49-58.
1998
Harrison C, Davies G (1998). Lifestyles and the Environment., ESRC.
Davies G (1998). Networks of Nature: Stories of Natural History Film-making at the BBC.
Author URL.