1st Edition

Nature, Risk and Responsibility Discourses of Biotechnology

Edited By Patrick O'Mahony Copyright 1999
    242 Pages
    by Routledge

    242 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book explores ethical interpretations of biotechnology and examines whether sufficient consensus exists or is emerging to enable this technology to occupy a stable role in the techno-economic, social, and cultural order. It employs a wide range of social theories to evaluate risks.

    Acknowledgements -- Notes on the Contributors -- Introduction: Biotechnology, Uncertainty and Contestation /Patrick O ’Mahony -- Part I Theoretical Reflections on Biotechnology and Responsibility -- 1 The Civilisation of the Gene: Biotechnological Risk Framed in the Responsibility Discourse /Piet Strydom -- 2 Biopolitics in the Risk Society: the Possibility of a Global Ethic of Societal Responsibility /Gerard Delanty -- 3 Biotechnology as Expertise Barry Barnes -- Part II Constructing Values: Public Communication on Biotechnology -- 4 Shifting Debates on New Reproductive Technology: Implications for Public Discourse in Ireland /Orla McDonnell -- 5 Biotechnological Communication and the Socio-Cultural Embeddedness of Economic Actors /Marion Dreyer -- 6 Constructing Difference: Discourse Coalitions on Biotechnology in the Press /Patrick Oy Mahony and Tracey Skillington -- Part III The Dynamics of Institutionalisation: Juridification and Regulation of Biotechnology -- 7 Public Representation and the Legal Regulation of Assisted Conception in Britain /John Murphy -- 8 Discourse Formations and Constellations of Conflict: Problems of Public Participation in the German Debate on Genetically Altered Plants /Alfons Bora -- 9 Law and the Cultural Construction of Nature: -- Biotechnology and the European Legal Framework /Christian Byk -- 10 Bio-patenting and Innovation: Nomads of the Present and a New Global Order /Ruth McNally and Peter Wheale -- Part IV Concluding Reflections -- 11 Modernity’s Organic Economy of Governmentality /Tracey Skillington -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

    Biography

    Patrick O'Mahony is Director of the Centre for European Social Research, University College, Cork. He is co-author of Rethinking Irish History (1998).

    "This volume attempts to address a topic of considerable importance to our contemporary world. It raises issues about which sociologists should be informed." -- Lawrence Busch, Contemporary Sociology