Towards a Geography of Bodily Biotechnologies

Abstract

Guest Editorial. Since Katz and Kirby (1991) noted the challenge biotechnology presented to existing understandings of the relationship between an externalised nature and the human individual, geographers have increasingly begun to venture into the complex and fascinating spaces mapped out by advances in the life sciences. The political, economic, cultural, and theoretical implications of hybrid entities, such as genetically modified (GM) foods, transgenetic organisms, and genetic medicine, have attracted much critical attention from geographers, not least because they question perceived boundaries between nature and culture, self and world, human and nonhuman that are echoed by the human ^ physical divide within the geographical discipline itself. This has led to calls for a new kind of biogeography that would put `life back into the discipline' and which would be `proactive rather than reactive' (Castree, 1999) when faced with opportunities to shape the political and social context of newly emerging biotechnologies. As Bridge et al (2003, page 165) noted, ``doing biotechnology'' ``raise[s] new questions and analytical opportuniti es for geography that require the creation of new modes of inquiry, [the] development of alter native theoretical frameworks, or experimentation with creative practice''.