Concurrent Themes in To Know Where He Lies and the Mini Ethnography

I wanted to highlight two points that arose both in To Know Where He Lies, and in my interview with a scientist in training for our class ethnography.  The first, was the idea of an instrument versus a machine.  While this lingo may be common amongst those who work in scientific fields, as a student of anthropology I had never considered there to be a difference in the meanings of a ‘machine’ versus an ‘instrument’. However, according to the scientist I interviewed, her interpretation of the difference was that “machines do things for you, whereas instruments help you accomplish things”.  It simply re-emphasized the point that scientists do have their own culture which includes carefully selected terms that are ingrained in the minds young scientists from their earliest laboratory endeavors. Therefore, when I saw the word ‘instruments’ used in Wagner’s novel, it immediately brought this idea to mind and continued to challenge my initial close minded view of a ‘culture-less’ scientific world.  Not only does the scientific world have a strong culture, but it transcends laboratory and national boundaries.
The second point was simply that producing results in science takes time.  In the opening of the third chapter of To Know Where He Lies, Wagner discusses the slow process of identifying the missing persons- likely to due a lack of infrastructure and slow moving technologies.  In order to eventually be successful, the scientists involved dedicated countless long hours and remarkable patience to the project.  This theme also came up in my ethnographic interview.  As a chemist in training, my subject touched upon how slow moving the scientific process can be, particularly when dealing with slow moving reactions.  Psychologically, this was extremely challenging for other scientists she encountered, whose careers and reputations depended on breakthroughs.  She noted it taking emotional tolls on people.  I can only imagine the added stress of a scientist working on the identification of genocide victims in Srebrenica who has a huge task at hand, and whose results will have profound emotional effects on the families of those killed.  However, the other common theme was that this slow moving process just made that moment of discovery and success even more rewarding for both the chemists and forensic scientists.