Bio-Objects: Life in the 21st Century

241 Pages·2012·1.394 MB·English

by  Niki Vermeulen, Sakari Tamminen, Andrew Webster

Bio-Objects
Life in the 21st Century
Edited by
Niki Vermeulen, Sakari Tamminen and
Andrew Webster
Bio-oBjects
theory, technology and society
series editor: Ross Abbinnett, University of Birmingham, UK
theory, technology and society presents the latest work in social, cultural and
political theory, which considers the impact of new technologies on social,
economic and political relationships. central to the series are the elucidation of
new theories of the humanity-technology relationship, the ethical implications of
techno-scientific innovation, and the identification of unforeseen effects which are
emerging from the techno-scientific organization of society.
With particular interest in questions of gender relations, the body, virtuality,
penality, work, aesthetics, urban space, surveillance, governance and the
environment, the series encourages work that seeks to determine the nature of
the social consequences that have followed the deployment of new technologies,
investigate the increasingly complex relationship between ‘the human’ and ‘the
technological’, or addresses the ethical and political questions arising from the
constant transformation and manipulation of humanity.
Other titles in this series
Decentering Biotechnology
Assemblages Built and Assemblages Masked
Michael S. Carolan
isBN 978 1 4094 1005 8
the Genome incorporated
constructing Biodigital identity
Kate O’Riordan
isBN 978 0 7546 7851 9
technology and Medical Practice
Blood, Guts and Machines
Edited by Ericka Johnson and Boel Berner
isBN 978 0 7546 7836 6
contested categories
Life sciences in society
Edited by Susanne Bauer and Ayo Wahlberg
isBN 978 0 7546 7618 8
Bio-objects
Life in the 21st century
Edited by
NiKi VeRMeULeN
University of Vienna, Austria
sAKARi tAMMiNeN
University of Helsinki, Finland
ANDReW WeBsteR
University of York, UK
© Niki Vermeulen, sakari tamminen and Andrew Webster 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Niki Vermeulen, sakari tamminen and Andrew Webster have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Bio-objects : life in the 21st century. -- (theory,
technology and society)
1. Life (Biology)--Philosophy. 2. Genetic engineering.
3. Genetic engineering--Moral and ethical aspects.
4. transgenic organisms. 5. Human reproductive technology.
6. Human reproductive technology--Moral and ethical
aspects.
i. series ii. Vermeulen, Niki. iii. tamminen, sakari.
iV. Webster, Andrew, 1951-
660.6'5-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vermeulen, Niki.
Bio-objects : life in the 21st century / by Niki Vermeulen, sakari
tamminen, and Andrew Webster.
p. cm. -- (theory, technology, and society)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBN 978-1-4094-1178-9 (hbk) -- isBN 978-1-4094-1179-6 (ebk)
1. Life sciences--social aspects. 2. transgenic animals.
i. tamminen, sakari. ii. Webster, Andrew, 1951- iii. title.
QH333.B48 2011
508--dc23
2011040150
isBN 9781409411789 (hbk)
isBN 9781409411796 (ebk)
IV
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the
MPG Books Group, UK.
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: Bio-Objects: Exploring the Boundaries of Life 1
Andrew Webster
Part 1 Changing Boundaries of human, nonhuman and
soCiety
1 Challenging Bio-objectification: Adding Noise to
Transgenic Silences 13
Tora Holmberg and Malin Ideland
2 Pluripotent Promises: Configurations of a Bio-object 27
Lena Eriksson
3 Water – An Exploration of the Boundaries of Bio-objects 43
Ragna Zeiss
4 Bio-objectification of Clinical Research Patients: Impacts
on the Stabilization of New Medical Technologies 59
Conor M.W. Douglas
Part 2 governing Bio-oBjeCts
5 Beasting Biology: Interspecies Politics 71
Nik Brown

6 Comparing Public Engagement with Bio-objects: Implementing
Co-existence Regimes for GM Crops in Denmark, the UK and
Germany 85
Janus Hansen
vi Bio-Objects: Life in the 21st Century
7 Governing Hereditary Disease in the Age of Autonomy: Mutations,
Families and Care 103
Aaro Tupasela
8 At the Margins of Life: Making Fetal Life Matter in Trajectories
of First Trimester Prenatal Risk Assessment (FTPRA) 117
Nete Schwennesen
Part 3 generative relations
9 The Fruit of Love: The German IVF-embryo Turning from
Abject into Bio-object 137
Bettina Bock von Wülfingen
10 On Why States Still Matter: In vitro Fertilization Embryos
between Laboratories and State Authorities in Italy 151
Ingrid Metzler
11 Growing a Cell in Silico: On How the Creation of a Bio-object
Transforms the Organisation of Science 171
Niki Vermeulen
12 Genetic Discrimination 2.0: The Un/Differentiating Gene
in Insurance 187
Ine Van Hoyweghen
13 Still Life? Frozen Gametes, National Gene Banks and
Re-configuration of Animality 203
Sakari Tamminen
Index 219
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 Distribution of ‘pluripoten*’ and ‘totipoten*’ in ES cell
articles 1975-2005 33
7.1 Pedigree of family predisposed to hereditary cancer 108
7.2 Contact protocol for possible HNPCC carriers 110
7.3 Telephone contact protocol for HNPCC family members
and relatives 113
12.1 Medical genetics and regulatory considerations 198
13.1 Performing visual judgements of mobility and motility 208
Tables
4.1 Components of PGx warfarin project, the associated disciplines
and concurrent bio-objectification of the clinical research patient
(CRP) 64
6.1 Public engagement and the governance of bio-objects in three
countries 97
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Notes on Contributors
Bettina Bock von Wülfingen is a biologist with a PhD in public health, now
Assistant Professor at the Institute for Cultural History and Theory at the Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin. Her work revolves around epistemologies in Life Sciences,
always applying a historical perspective. Her current, second book project
deals with methodology, more explicitly with the interrelation of instruments,
background beliefs and models in heredity and reproductive sciences around 1900
and 2000. She did her doctoral thesis with a discourse analysis on the health and
illness notion in discourses on new reproductive and genetic technologies. During
her PhD, she received different international visiting fellowships within Science
and Technology Studies, working inter alia at the IAS-STS in Graz/Austria, the
SATSU in York and the BIOS in London.
Nik Brown is Reader in Sociology and co-director of the Science and
Technology Unit (SATSU) at the University of York. His research interests
focus on culturally intriguing developments in the biosciences such as cloning,
transpecies transplantation, hybrids, chimeras, stem cells, and biobanking.
He is interested in the social management of the boundaries between life and
death, the human and the animal, the biologically mundane and the exotic,
the public and the private. He is particularly interested in the politics, regulation
and governance of novel biological developments and reproduction. He has also
written extensively on the sociology of hope, expectations and futurity.
Conor M.W. Douglas is a post-doctoral Researcher in both the Section Community
Genetics at the Vrije University (Amsterdam) medical centre, and in the Technology
Assessment group at the Rathenau Institute in The Hague. Originally trained
as a sociologist and then in science and technology studies (STS), his research
interests are located in the interactions and co-production between biomedical
sciences and society. This general interest has resulted in empirical research in
patient and ‘user’ involvement in biomedical innovation processes including
pharmacogenetics, biobanking, bioinformatics, synthetic biology, meta-genomics
and bioremediation, and translational science more generally.
Lena Eriksson is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics
and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her main research
interests are effects of taxonomies and standards in science and medicine; which
she explored in an ethnographic study of international standardisation efforts in
human embryonic stem cell research. Her two most current research projects