New Genetics, New Social Formations / Edition 1

by Peter Glasner, Paul Atkinson, Helen Greenslade

Overview

New genetic technologies cut across a range of public regulatory domains and private lifeworlds, often appearing to generate an institutional void in response to the complex challenges they pose. As a result, a number of new social formations are being developed to legitimate public engagement and avoid the perceived democratic deficit that may result. Papers in this volume discuss a variety of these manifestations in a global context, including:

• genetic data banks
• committees of inquiry
• non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• national research laboratories.

These institutions, across both health and agriculture, are explored in such diverse locations as Amazonia, China, Finland, Israel, the UK and the USA. This volume exhibits a clear thematic coherence around the impact of the new genetics and their associated technologies on new social formations, and the case studies included have a significant international focus, showing a balance between theoretical and empirical approaches in this rapidly changing field.

This innovative new volume will be of interest to postgraduates and professionals in the fields of sociology, social anthropology, science and technology studies, and environmental studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415393232
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/14/2006
Series:	Genetics and Society
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Glasner, Peter; Atkinson, Paul; Greenslade, Helen

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: New Genetics, New Social Formations 2. British Public Attitudes to Agricultural Biotechnology and the 2003 GMN Nation?: Public Debate - Distrust, Ambivalence and Risk 3. The UK Stem Cell Bank: Creating Safe Stem Cell Lines and Public Support? 4. Public Biotechnology Inquiries: From Rationality to Reflexivity 5. The Precautionary Principle on Trial: The Construction and Transformation of the Precautionary Principle in the UK Court Context 6. The Social Construction of the Biotech Industry 7. Biopiracy and the Bioeconomy 8. Identifying John Moore: Narratives of Persona in Patent Law Relating to Inventions of Human Origin 9. Sampling policies of Isolates of Historical Interest (IHI): The Social and Historical Formation of Research Populations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) 10. The Making of Scientific Knowledge in the Anthropological Perspective Case Studies from the French Scientific Community 11. Genomics and the Transformation of Knowledge: The Bioinformatics Challenge 12. Science, Media and Society: The Framing of Bioethical Debates around Embryonic Stem Cell Research between 2000 and 2005 13. ‘Natural Forces’: The Regulation and Discourse of Genomics and Advanced Medical Technologies in Israel 14. Survival of the Gene?: 21st Century Visions from Genomics, Proteomics and the New Biology