ABSTRACT
The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India can be traced back to the middle of the twentieth century when a central role was assigned to science, technology and innovation as the principal drivers in transforming the economic and political fortunes of the nation-state. In the middle of the twentieth century two new state interests were added to the traditional one of national security, namely the promotion of science and economic development. Ashis Nandy argues that ‘in the name of science and development one can today demand enormous sacrifices from, and inflict immense sufferings on, the ordinary citizen. That these are often willingly borne by the citizen is itself a part of the syndrome’ (Nandy, 1996: 1). The notion of development as understood and taken for granted in global political and policy circles emerged in a speech given by US President Harry S. Truman in 1945; the idea of science as a state interest first appeared in a speech made by President John F. Kennedy. The speech declared one of America’s major national goals to be the scientific feat of putting a man on the moon. In the past, Nandy argues, ‘science was put to the use of the state but the state itself was never put to the use of science’. Kennedy’s speech tied the very idea of science to the real and imagined goals of a modern nation-state. Nandy’s argument gains even more salience in the context of the bur-
geoning spread of neo-liberal governance modalities around the globe. The rise of the biotechnology of embryonic stem cells in India is, in part, symptomatic of this ongoing reordering and the emergence of a new global order. Contemporary India is rapidly challenging the long-established political and economic divisions between the North/South, First/Third Worlds, developed/ developing economies and Western/Eastern cultures. The twentieth-century development discourse set in motion by Truman’s speech, which envisaged unidirectional traffic from the global North to the local South, is in the process of being disassembled. In fact, the competition-driven market model of neo-liberalism requires an altered reading of Nandy’s contention that in the name of science and development ordinary citizens often willingly bear enormous sacrifices and immense sufferings. As the book will show, in the
neo-liberal mode of production a citizen’s ‘willingness’ to bear suffering is distorted by socio-economic inequalities, just as the state’s ability to demand sacrifice is enabled by the availability of gendered, stigmatized and impoverished citizens. The precise significance of stem cell research in contemporary India will
unfold in the course of this book, and no attempt is made to summarize it all here. Equally, the intention is not to provide a general introduction to the anthropology or sociology of stem cells and post-genomic biomedical knowledge. It will, however, be useful to offer an outline introduction to the subject-matter of this monograph. Stem cells in general have, of course, been the subject of much popular
attention and political intervention, in addition to social-scientific research and commentary. They are, in turn, aspects of a wider range of scientific and medical developments that have emerged in recent years and that have considerable economic, social and cultural significance (Brown and Webster, 2004). Stem cells are unspecialized, undifferentiated cells that have the capacity to develop into cells of different kinds of tissue or organs. Stem cells are, in other words, cells at a very early stage of their developmental life. They can be induced to develop into specific cell types, such as nerve cells or muscle cells. There is nothing intrinsically controversial about stem cells. They occur
naturally. They have also been used for therapeutic purposes for many years: bone-marrow transplants for the treatment of leukaemia depends on the capacity of stem cells in the bone marrow to turn into various lines of blood cells. Stem cells have attracted a degree of controversy, however, because of the
use of embryonic stem cells. Cells derived from the earliest stages of foetal development have the capacity to develop into any tissues and therefore provide scientists with the opportunity to grow cell-lines that can be used for research purposes, and to grow tissues (such as corneas and cartilage) that can be used in regenerative medicine. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have been derived from ‘spare’ embryos created in the course of IVF treatment and not needed for implantation into the women’s womb. Such embryos may then be donated by the couple who were receiving the IVF treatment for the purposes of scientific and medical research. Embryos may also be created through the use of cell nuclear replacement, where the nucleus from donated egg (oocyte) is replaced with the nucleus of a patient’s cell. As we shall see, the availability of eggs and embryos has been of great significance in the emergence of India’s stem cell research. (However, it is now being argued that the use of embryonic stem cells may eventually become obsolete, as it is now becoming possible to ‘re-programme’ mature cells back to an undifferentiated stem cell state.) This book exemplifies, with reference to the Indian context, that the creation,
storage, circulation and use of stem cells are a matter of ethical and political debate. There are various national regimes of regulation, and differ from
contextual
nation-state to nation-state. These differences in regulation create the possibility for international competition and markets in which ethical and legal regimes combine with economic and scientific capital in the creation of global markets in biomedical research. Stem cell research is one major aspect of biomedical research, which is
developing on a global basis. Increasingly national strategies in scientific investment are shaped by economic and cultural forces as never before (cf. Franklin, 2003b, 2005). National frameworks of regulation and state investment also interact with various private-sector interests. The latter include private biotech and pharma companies and research laboratories, and the private health care sector (such as IVF clinics). Local, regional and national configurations of these factors directly influence the level and direction of research effort in any national context. This book, and the research on which it is based, are devoted to the par-
ticular case of India. Stem cell research is strongly driven by developments in the Asia-Pacific region, with major investments in China, Singapore and South Korea. India, which is part of this movement, is an especially interesting case, with a distinctive configuration of politics, economy and culture. As discussed in more detail at a later stage, the Indian government has made a major commitment to investment in scientific research and development. The supply of eggs and embryos on the other hand reflects the flourishing ‘IVF scene’ in India, which in turn reflects the high social value placed on fertility and reproduction. The favourable cultural environment is a reflection of the fact that the embryo is not accorded the kind of significance it is in Europe, Australia, the United States and other countries (Bharadwaj, 2005b). Fertility clinics are well established in India, and are lucrative sites of medical practice (cf. Bharadwaj, 2000, 2001). India has thus been especially well placed to develop a stem cell research effort, based on a combination of economic, ethical and cultural factors. These developments take place in a global context, and it is the aim of this book to explore the relationships between the local and the global in the circuits of stem cell research. In examining contemporary developments in the generation, application
and legislation of embryonic stem cells in India the cultural, social, economic and political processes that have an impact on those developments are analysed. In so doing, the book explores how these processes shape, and are shaped by, developments in other locales around the globe. The picture is at best partial, as the field is changing rapidly – locally and globally: the book captures a snapshot of a complex story. However, the analysis does go beyond the particular ethnographic exploration of Indian stem cell science, in order to address more generic analytic issues. The main thrust of the book is to explore what ‘local’ and ‘global’ might look like in a world where ‘locales’ for the production of new scientific knowledge and its application are departing from ‘normative site specificity’. Former ‘ThirdWorld’ countries like India are reinventing themselves as global players, not merely economically, but also ethically and politically. They now participate, more than ever
The local,
before, in re-framing national and international regulatory and ethical regimes. This recasting of the global is both intimately local and strategic. In other words, its unique local cultural and moral context gives India the edge in recasting herself as a global player in emerging scientific fields such as embryonic manipulation for stem cell extraction. At the same time, however, the dominant global patterns of neo-liberal statecraft and political economy put in place the material and cultural conditions under which a rise to global prominence might be achieved. The local circumstances that make possible rapid biomedical development must, therefore, be tempered to global ethical and political frameworks. Hence, the book seeks to explain the rise of embryonic stem cell research in India by arguing that a ‘neo’, as opposed to ‘new’, India is on the rise. This rise is achieved, in part, due to a number of structural, cultural, ideological, and material conditions, both local and global. The book conceptualizes shifts in these local and global formulations
through which India is being re-imagined and recast in the new century. In order to examine these transformations, a number of key concepts are deployed including ‘dis-locations’, ‘moral economy’, ‘bio-crossings’ and the ‘liminal third’. These concepts are unpacked and related to the main theoretical frame of the local and the global in this introductory chapter and throughout the rest of the book. However, it is important to note that, as with any process of change, there are inherent tensions that India is encountering on her ‘upward journey’. These creative tensions become visible as the country is steered into a neo-liberal political economy, towards a synthesis that is global and yet localizing, perhaps even uniquely ‘Indianizing’. There are obstacles to this process of transformation. They include
entrenched structural constraints (and many do exist), and imagined traditions and their inevitable incompatibility and clash with supposed modernities. In addition, there is resistance articulated by actors who inhabit the institutions and endorse the ethical frameworks that are threatened as the local confronts the global. It is, moreover, a mistake to assume that what is happening in India is in some fundamental way unprecedented. A cursory glance at the history of India is enough to demonstrate that Indian history contains a series of cultural encounters that have had profound reconfiguring impacts on its culture and geographical spread. India is now negotiating the global, fast moving currents, on which circulate economic and biological capital, natural and human resources, ‘local moral worlds’ and global ethical and governance modalities. It is not the first time that India has confronted global economic and cultural transformations on an equivalent scale. A brief overview of the way in which the notions of ‘local’ and ‘global’ are
framed is presented in this chapter. This is followed by a brief introduction to the ethnographic fieldwork and its conduct. The chapter concludes with an overview of the subsequent chapters. This sets the context for further exploration of the various substantive themes within this book. As with any text, there are multiple ways to enter and exit this book. Each chapter can be
contextual
read on its own, or in conjunction with one or more of the others. However, the book is best understood if it is read in its entirety in order to follow the conceptual threads and to understand the way in which they are woven into the ethnographic illustrations. This brings real-life context to conceptions about the place of science in a rapidly altering world where notions of the local and the global are being shaken up in an unprecedented fashion. Different readers will read the book in different ways, and will understand, critique and extend the formulations in their own way. It is the act of reading and not necessarily the act of writing that eventually creates a text.
