[Oxytocin: From a Hormone for Birth to a Social Hormone : The Hormonal Governance of Sociability aka Society]. / Oxytocin: Vom Geburts- zum Sozialhormon : Zur hormonellen Regierbarkeit von Soziabilität aka Gesellschaft.

In the mass media, the hormone Oxytocin is currently being debated as the biochemical basis of sociability and a powerful neuropharmacological solution for (re-)establishing societal cohesion. Given its beginning as a 'bodyhormone' early in the 20th century, this article will trace the extraordinary career of Oxytocin from a regulator of birth to a regulator of society. What makes so strong a claim intelligible and acceptable? Our analysis of the scientific discourse on Oxytocin (1906-1990), the mass media discourse since the 1990s, and its repercussions for the scientific discourse during the same period, suggest a series of re-configurations of scientific theories and practices, as well as of the conception of the substance itself. Oxytocin became established in the first half of the 20th century, and as a neurohormone as early as the 1950s, yet during the following decades attracted little scientific attention. Only following the mass media's focus on the suggested effects of Oxytocin on love and bonding did the substance increasingly become the focus of empirical research. This work argues that the reception of Oxytocin as a potential neurohormonal basis for individual sociability strongly relies on the mass media discourses, biopolitical linkages that had already been made in the first half of the 20th century aiming at the regulation of life, and a technoscientific mode of research on Oxytocin. At their intersection Oxytocin emerged as a social hormone.

Toxicology as a nanoscience?--disciplinary identities reconsidered.

Toxicology is about to establish itself as a leading scientific discipline in addressing potential health effects of materials on the nanosize level. Entering into a cutting-edge field, has an impact on identity-building processes within the involved academic fields. In our study, we analyzed the ways in which the entry into the field of nanosciences impacts on the formation of disciplinary identities. Using the methods of qualitative interviews with particle toxicologists in Germany, Holland, Switzerland and the USA, we could demonstrate that currently, toxicology finds itself in a transitional phase. The development of its disciplinary identity is not yet clear. Nearly all of our interview partners stressed the necessity of repositioning toxicology. However, they each suggested different approaches. While one part is already propagandizing the establishment of a new discipline--'nanotoxicology'--others are more reserved and are demanding a clear separation of traditional and new research areas. In phases of disciplinary new-orientation, research communities do not act consistently. Rather, they establish diverse options. By expanding its disciplinary boundaries, participating in new research fields, while continuing its previous research, and only vaguely defining its topics, toxicology is feeling its way into the new fields without giving up its present self-conception. However, the toxicological research community is also discussing a new disciplinary identity. Within this, toxicology could develop from an auxiliary into a constitutive position, and take over a basic role in the cognitive, institutional and social framing of the nanosciences.