ABSTRACT

The authenticity of things is often seen as an intrinsic characteristic – one that would depend only upon their internal properties. One way of renewing the analysis of fakeness has consisted in showing on the contrary how dependent things are upon external factors such as social and normative contexts. In addition, research has shown the fluidity that results from such an observation: fakeness is not a stable identity, as it is continuously built along social and technical interactions. This article contributes to this analysis by demonstrating how discussions over pharmaceuticals in Kenya have been shaped across time and space. It shows that from colonial history to the grip of global market forces, pharmaceutical fakeness is a recurring manifestation of the never ending circulations between the status of people and the properties of things.

摘要

事物的真实性通常被视为一种内在特征——一种仅取决于其内部属性的特征。更新虚假性分析的一种方法是相反地表明事物如何依赖于外部因素，例如社会和规范背景。此外，研究显示了这种观察结果的流动性：虚假不是一个稳定的身份，因为它是在社会和技术互动中不断建立的。本文通过展示肯尼亚关于药品的讨论是如何跨越时间和空间形成的，从而为这一分析做出贡献。它表明，从殖民历史到全球市场力量的控制，药品造假是人的地位与物的属性之间永无止境的循环的反复表现。