PD Dr. Silke Gülker

There is a problem in debates on science and religion: When talking about “science” on the one hand and “religion” on the other, willing or not, one constructs and reconstructs two distinct categories. However, both spheres, science and religion, are not as clear-cut and uncontested as the use of such categories might imply. The project examines the relationship between science and religion from the perspectives of sociology of knowledge and science studies. Theoretically, the research is based on a concept that is important in both science and religion: The construction of transcendence. In doing so, it seeks for overcoming the dichotomy of two categories but focuses on the fundamentally important question of how boundaries between something that is available (verfügbar) and something that is not available (unverfügbar) are constructed. In order to approach this complex topic, the project focuses on empirical studies in the field of stem cell research. Two ethnographic studies were conducted in international stem cell research laboratories, one located in the United States and one in Germany. Based on biographical interviews with the researchers and observations in the laboratories, the studies can identify in how far constructions of transcendence play a role in scientific work. For example, almost all members of the laboratories construct the concept of a species hierarchy as given and not available for human’s intervention. The same is true for the principle of disease. However, the boundary between availability and non-availability is not fix, but its construction and reconstruction is ongoing.