Beasting the Embryo - Embodying Hybrid Politics
by Nik Brown, dr., senior lecturer sociology, Science & Technology Studies Unit, Department of Sociology University of York, UK
Duration: 52:10
This paper questions some of the central terms of reference of the recent UK transpecies hybrid embryo debate and its passage through various regulatory and parliamentary mechanisms throughout 2006 to the present day. It draws upon recent writing on the politics of life, hybrid sociology, queer theory and post-humanism in making sense of three related cultural contradictions evident in the debate. First, a contradictory position has been taken over a period of decades in which the law simultaneously bans and yet permits the production of transpecies hybrid embryos. Secondly, the debate has vacillated between the differentiation and dedifferentiation of embryos. Attempts to produce a technically granulated taxonomy distinguishing between different classes of embryo (chimeras, pure hybrids, etc) have been in fundamental tension with the pressure to morally homogenise all embryos as research resources. Finally, the paper comments on the tensions and slippage between science and publics, or rather purity and profanity, in which epistemological differences map onto wider moral distinctions. |
