The Elephant and the Dragon in Contemporary Life Sciences

'Through an illuminating series of vignettes and cases, Zhang and Datta Burton reassert the agency of China and India’s research communities, and recast their ‘epistemic disobedience’ as essential to the urgent task of decolonising the global governance of science. This is an important and timely book, packed with insights and provocations that deserve to be widely read by scientific leaders, policymakers, and by scientists themselves. Its conclusions should challenge, destabilise – yet also strengthen and renew – the frameworks and assumptions that govern science in China, India and worldwide.' James Wilsdon, Digital Science Professor of Research Policy, University of Sheffield 'The rise of China and India as science powerhouses challenges Western assumptions about the ""universality"" of science and its global governance. Using vivid examples, the authors argue that Asian life scientists are involved in the constitution of contemporary science that in actuality is a diverse, multi-sited, transnational, and evolving mode of global knowledge.' Aihwa Ong, author of Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life 'This is the most refreshing, well-informed, and theoretically incisive survey to date of the evolution of Chinese and Indian science-and-technology strategies on the global stage. Using key case studies to ground their argument about how India and China are gradually challenging the hegemonic control of Western science through epistemic disobedience and strategic science diplomacy, physician-STS scholar Zhang and public policy economist Datta-Burton provide a new bench-mark text for future STS (science, technology and society), geopolitical, and national development studies. They prove the value of multi-locale and comparative or juxtapositional methods of analysis which are fundamental to understanding emergent forms of the future.' Michael M.J. Fischer, author of Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice and Anthropology in the Meantime 'This compellingly written book reflects on the history and contemporary development of the life sciences in these two countries, and presents an urgent case to rethink global science so that it lives up to its name.' Larry Au, The Journal of Development Studies 'A timely work armed with an innovative analytical framework. Under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global inequality and power imbalance in science, the interconnectedness of the world and the need for a balanced global circulation of scientific development are never so clearly demonstrated. The book, through many case studies related to and beyond the pandemic, urges readers to think about the roles of various kinds of actors in the Global South in shaping science and the human future. Through the analytical framework of national habitus and critical events, the authors seize and critically reflect upon the most representative characteristics of the two countries in relation to global science governance and the milestones in their interactions and confrontations with their Western counterparts.' Jack Linzhou Xing, Science, Technology and Society, Volume 29 Issue 1 -- .