Sacrifice, Individuation, and the Economies of Genomics

Abstract

Even as the biotechnological and genomic revolutions have promised spectacular life-saving and life-extending drugs and therapies, social and cultural critics have highlighted injustices associated with contemporary systems of biocommerce, often drawing on concepts of "sacrifice" and "savagery" to highlight social and class inequities. While sympathetic to these critiques, Mitchell argues that the concept of sacrifice is a problematic means for addressing these inequities, for it binds critics to the Enlightenment logic of the systems of biocommerce that they question. After outlining the sacrificial logic of "innovation" that runs through public policy defenses of biocommerce, Mitchell turns to two cinematic depictions of biocommerce (Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) and Paul W. S. Anderson's Resident Evil (2002)), as well as to philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon's concept of "individuation," to argue that these films outline an approach to biomedical innovation that allows us to think injustice beyond concepts of sacrifice.