ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on technology-brokers and inventors who operate in a medical context. It aims to discuss how relationships between the actors involved affect the possibility of transforming innovations into consumables, and to describe the kind of social work needed to successfully make this transformation. The chapter explores some of those tricks by using the concept 'net work' when discussing technology-brokers, 'face work' when talking about inventors, and finally 'trust work' when considering relationships between several actors. Brokering is, of course, not restricted to the specific arena of medicine and biotechnology. This middle-man position can be found in many different contexts. Erving Goffman introduced the concept of face work in the 1950s, In brief, the concept is about how people try to maintain a balance or consistency between their actions and presentations of themselves.
