The Hidden Labor of Translation: Introduction to Special Issue

Translational medicine is concerned with hastening the application of basic scientific discoveries at the bench toward beneficial clinical outcomes at the bedside. Disrupting linear and simplified views of translational medicine, the contributions to this Special Issue of ST&HV on the Hidden Labor of Translation start from the assumption that translational medicine is best captured as a circular and iterative process, while the boundaries between research and clinical care are ambiguous, fluid, and flexible. The central argument is that translational medicine takes work. It is the product of many different categories of workers in a variety of settings and locations, from laboratory scientists to research nurses, janitors to animal technicians. This labor is highly uneven, often gendered, racialized, and differently valued. By unpacking the concrete processes, practices, and materialities that produce and reproduce translational medicine, the authors in this Special Issue explore what ties together the animal facility, scientific laboratory, biobank, university hospital or pharmaceutical company in translational medicine. These contributions underline that translational medicine depends on keeping certain forms of work invisible. As the authors examine how certain forms of work are filtered out, they elaborate and problematize the particular social organization of knowledge and ignorance upon which translational medicine rests.