Abstract
A qualitative pilot study on the attitudes of some citizens in southern Sweden toward predictive genetic testing – and a quantitative nation wide opinion poll targeting the same issues, was initiated by the Cultural Scientific Research Team of BAGADILICO. The latter is an international biomedical research environment on neurological disease at Lund University. The data of the two studies crystallized through analysis into themes around which the informants’ personal negotiations of opinions and emotions in relation to the topic centred: Concept of Risk,’Relations and Moral Multi-layers, Worry, Agency and Autonomy, Authority, and Rationality versus Emotion. The studies indicate that even groups of people that beforehand are non-engaged in the issue, harbour complex and ambivalent emotions and opinions toward questions like this. A certain kind of situation bound pragmatism that with difficulty could be shown by quantitative methods alone emerges. This confirms our belief that methodological consideration of combining quantitative and qualitative methods is crucial for gaining a more complex representation of attitudes, as well as for problematizing the idea of a unified public open to inquiry.
Highlights
Ulrich Beck (1992) declares that the proliferation of risks is the hallmark of our current situation
In relation to the proliferation of risks, this late modern configuration has partly removed the collectivist risk management of the traditional welfare state, favouring a form of prudentialism where the individual is responsible for managing risks (O’Malley 1996: 197)
A rational selfinterest and risk management is articulated as an everyday practice of the self (O’Malley 1996: 200)
Summary
Ulrich Beck (1992) declares that the proliferation of risks is the hallmark of our current situation. In today’s biosociety, and parallel to the cultural, social and political development; scientific development within genetics and genomics has produced an increased knowledge about human genetics This scientific development has created new possibilities for diagnostic prediction by means of using genetic tests. The article aims to explore how people relate to and talk about situations that arise in relation to genetics and genomics This is done on the basis of two studies conducted by the authors: the qualitative survey Knowledge of Disease (2010), and the nationwide opinion poll Public Research – Genetic Diseases (2011). We want to emphasize the methodological and political importance of paying attention to such ambivalence This means that we call for a more thorough consideration of the methods used for gathering data for ethical discussion and drawing up guidelines in modern biomedical research.
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