1st Edition

New Genetics, New Social Formations

Edited By Peter Glasner, Paul Atkinson, Helen Greenslade Copyright 2007
    304 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    318 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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.

    1 Introduction: New Genetics, New Social Formations
    Peter Glasner and Paul Atkinson      

    2 British Public Attitudes to Agricultural Biotechnology and the
    2003 GMN Nation? Public Debate: Distrust, Ambivalence and Risk
    Nick Pidgeon and Wouter Poortinga      

    3 The UK stem cell bank: Creating safe stem cell lines and public support?
    Loes Kater         

    4 Public Biotechnology Inquiries: From Rationality to Reflexivity
    Tee Rogers-Hayden and Mavis Jones      

    5 The Precautionary Principle on Trial: The construction and transformation of the Precautionary Principle in the UK court context
    Chie Ujita, Liz Sharp and Peter Hopkinson     

    6 The Social Construction of the Biotech Industry
    Kean Birch         

    7 Biopiracy and the Bioeconomy
    Paul Oldham        

    8 Identifying John Moore: Narratives of Persona in Patent Law Relating to Inventions of Human Origin
    Hyo Yoon Kang        

    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)
     Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner       

    10 The making of scientific knowledge in the anthropological perspective
    Case studies from the French scientific community
     Angela Procoli        

    11 Genomics and the Transformation of Knowledge: the Bioinformatics Challenge
    Henrik Bruun         

    12 Science, Media and Society: the framing of bioethical debates around embryonic stem cell research between 2000 and 2005
    Jenny Kitzinger, Clare Williams and Lesley Henderson   

    13 ‘Natural Forces’ – The Regulation and Discourse of Genomics and Advanced Medical Technologies in Israel
    Barbara Prainsack        

    14 Survival of the Gene? 21st Century Visions from Genomics, Proteomics and the New Biology
    Ruth McNally and Peter Glasner 

    Biography

    Glasner, Peter; Atkinson, Paul; Greenslade, Helen