Governing bio-objects: a research agenda

Abstract

Over the past few decades, we have encountered life in surprising new forms and in unusual spaces. Scientists have been able to derive stem cells from the inner cell masses of early human embryos and to keep these cell lines dividing and growing; mammals have been produced not through the fusion of gametes but with the help of cloning technologies; and mice have been “humanized.” Some of these entities have themselves been transformed and made mobile. Human embryonic stem cell lines derived from an embryo, for instance, have been “coaxed” into forming more specific and dedicated cell types, or they have found their way as bio-repositories. The rising number of such entities or “bio-objects” – as the recently established research network “Bio-objects and their boundaries: Governing matters at the intersection of society, politics, and science,” funded by the COST program, suggests naming them – bears witness to the growing ability of the life sciences to control life, to intervene in it, and sometimes also quite literally to “make” it. The salience of these bio-objects in public spaces – such as institutions entrusted with the ordering of our collective life – in newspaper headlines or internet fora for patient groups, testifies to the hopes that many individual and collective actors in post-industrial societies invest in the life sciences, which are entrusted not only with the task of producing knowledge but also with the task of making our collective life healthier, safer, and more productive.