Abstract
ABSTRACTBiomedicine and the life sciences continuously rearrange the relationship between culture and biology. In consequence, we increasingly look for a suitable regulatory response to reduce perceived uncertainty and instability. This article examines the full implications of this ‘regulatory turn’ by drawing on the anthropological concept of liminality. We offer the term ‘regulatory compression’ to characterise the effects of extant regulatory approaches on health research practices. With its focus on transformation and the ‘in-between’, liminality allows us to see how regulatory frameworks rely on a silo-based approach to classifying and regulating research objects such that they: (1) limit the flexibility necessary in clinical and laboratory research; (2) result in the emergence of unregulated spaces that lie between the bounded regulatory spheres; and (3) curtail modes of public participation in the health research enterprise. We suggest there is a need to develop the notion of ‘processual regulation’, a novel framework that requires a temporal-spatial examination of regulatory spaces and practices as these are experienced by all actors, including the relationship of actors with the objects of regulation.
Highlights
Biomedicine and the life sciences continuously rearrange the relationship between culture and biology
With its focus on transformation and the ‘in-between’, liminality allows us to see how regulatory frameworks rely on a silo-based approach to classifying and regulating research objects such that they: (1) limit the flexibility necessary in clinical and laboratory research; (2) result in the emergence of unregulated spaces that lie between the bounded regulatory spheres; and (3) curtail modes of public participation in the health research enterprise
We suggest there is a need to develop the notion of ‘processual regulation’, a novel framework that requires a temporal-spatial examination of regulatory spaces and practices as these are experienced by all actors, including the relationship of actors with the objects of regulation
Summary
Biomedicine and the life sciences continuously rearrange the relationship between culture and biology. The language and reasoning central to the work of command-and-control health research regulation has been criticised on two grounds It fails to achieve the appropriate distance from the objects of its analysis – a problem of either regulatory capture or regulatory naïveté. The benefits of such engagement have been outlined elsewhere, and developed through such notions as ‘partnership’ and ‘solidarity’.26 While these latter works speak directly to the democratic limits of any current command-and-control approach, we argue here that a processual approach to health research, grounded in liminality, suggests they need to be coupled with models that promote iterative and flexible regulation and critiques of the broader political purpose implicit in research regulation The benefits of such engagement have been outlined elsewhere, and developed through such notions as ‘partnership’ and ‘solidarity’.26 While these latter works speak directly to the democratic limits of any current command-and-control approach, we argue here that a processual approach to health research, grounded in liminality, suggests they need to be coupled with models that promote iterative and flexible regulation and critiques of the broader political purpose implicit in research regulation
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