{"title":"Recombinant DNA and Genome-editing Technologies: Embodied Utopias and Heterotopias","authors":"Eva Šlesingerová","doi":"10.1177/1357034X21998449","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Recombinant DNA technology is an essential area of life engineering. The main aim of research in this field is to experimentally explore the possibilities of repairing damaged human DNA, healing or enhancing future human bodies. Based on ethnographic research in a Czech biochemical laboratory, the article explores biotechnological corporealities and their specific ontology through dealings with bio-objects, the bodywork of scientists. Using the complementary concepts of utopia and heterotopia, the text addresses the situation of bodies and bio-objects in a laboratory. Embodied utopias are analyzed as material semiotic phenomena that are embodied by scientists in their visions and emotions and that are related to potential bodies and to future, not-yet-actualized embodiments. As a counterpart to this, the text explores embodied heterotopias, which are always the other spaces, like biotechnological bio-objects that are simulated in computers or stored in special solutions.","PeriodicalId":47568,"journal":{"name":"Body & Society","volume":"27 1","pages":"32 - 57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1357034X21998449","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Body & Society","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X21998449","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recombinant DNA technology is an essential area of life engineering. The main aim of research in this field is to experimentally explore the possibilities of repairing damaged human DNA, healing or enhancing future human bodies. Based on ethnographic research in a Czech biochemical laboratory, the article explores biotechnological corporealities and their specific ontology through dealings with bio-objects, the bodywork of scientists. Using the complementary concepts of utopia and heterotopia, the text addresses the situation of bodies and bio-objects in a laboratory. Embodied utopias are analyzed as material semiotic phenomena that are embodied by scientists in their visions and emotions and that are related to potential bodies and to future, not-yet-actualized embodiments. As a counterpart to this, the text explores embodied heterotopias, which are always the other spaces, like biotechnological bio-objects that are simulated in computers or stored in special solutions.
期刊介绍:
Body & Society has from its inception in March 1995 as a companion journal to Theory, Culture & Society, pioneered and shaped the field of body-studies. It has been committed to theoretical openness characterized by the publication of a wide range of critical approaches to the body, alongside the encouragement and development of innovative work that contains a trans-disciplinary focus. The disciplines reflected in the journal have included anthropology, art history, communications, cultural history, cultural studies, environmental studies, feminism, film studies, health studies, leisure studies, medical history, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, science studies, sociology and sport studies.