Introduction

As the chapters in this section demonstrate, the term ‘representation’ is complex and awareness of its complexity has informed developments in genomics and helped to shape understandings of and expectations for this biotechnical field. Formal definitions of the term generally allude to its cognitive, symbolic and political dimensions (Freadman 2005). These all entail forms and versions of standing for and they sometimes designate speaking of and/or speaking for. The expansion and intensification of media communications at the end of the twentieth century underscored the need for theoretical and methodological tools for analysing diverse forms of representation (Hall 1997). In the 1980s and 1990s philosophical and social studies researchers began giving

attention to processes of representation within the natural sciences. They probed the significance of representation within modern science generally (Hacking 1983) and offered detailed analyses of representational forms and practices within diverse scientific fields (Lynch and Woolgar 1990). Since the 1990s social studies of science and technology scholars have become particularly interested in visual representations, on grounds that, as Burri and Dumit contend: ‘images are inextricable from the daily practices of science, knowledge representation, and dissemination’ (Burri and Dumit 2008: 297). Burri and Dumit recommend further exploration of how visual imagery functions as a crucial part of the repertoire of ‘epistemic things’ (Rheinberger 1997) and boundary objects (Star and Griesemer 1989) which constitute and demarcate scientific knowledge. Moreover, representations have figured prominently within developments around

public understanding of science from the 1990s onwards (Wynne 1995; Bucchi and Neresini 2008). As an umbrella term which designates both a cluster of political initiatives and a subfield of social studies of science research, public understanding of science has been preoccupied with questions about how science is represented to and perceived by the public. Hence, media analyses have been a mainstay of public understanding of science research and policies. Moreover, some critical science studies scholars have challenged the established agenda by raising questions about how publics are represented within the discourses of public understanding of science (Irwin and Wynne 1996; Haran et al. 2007: Ch. 6). In studying representational practices in and around genomics the contributors to this

section relate to and draw on the various strands of science and technology research outlined above. However, while analysts of the natural sciences have become

increasingly interested in representation, the concept itself has come under scrutiny, with important consequences for genomics and for those who seek to understand its economic, social, philosophical and political dimensions. While it is not possible to provide a full review of developments around the concept in this short introduction, two key elements of this interrogation will be briefly considered here: poststructuralist critiques of realist understandings of representation and the influence of the concept of powerknowledge. Poststructuralism has highlighted the instability and diffusion of knowledge produc-

tion. In challenging realist claims about science as knowledge of the natural world reflecting that world, poststructuralism has destabilised understandings of representation as simply re-presentation – the presentation of something which pre-existed – thereby disturbing its connotations of mirroring. Instead, there has been much more emphasis placed on the performativity of all representations, disabusing simple notions of unmediated referencing. These aspects of poststructuralist theory have been employed and adapted in explorations of genomics (e.g. Haraway 1997: 23-44). For example, within such a poststructuralist framing, the representations of the Human Genome Programme undertaken by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in press conferences in 2000 are treated not as phenomena which are to be assessed in relation to the real making of the HGP in scientific laboratories, but as integral to the making of that Programme. A further implication of this perspective is that those engaged in ELSI (ethical, legal

and social research) on genomics are not regarded as outsiders observing the emergence of this field; rather, they are seen as implicated in its making. Indeed, the emergence of genomics has been co-terminus with an intensification of social science researchers’ awareness of their own roles in the making of the meanings of and expectations for technoscience. So, influenced by what they label the ‘dynamics of expectations literature’ (see Brown et al. 2000), Adam Hedgecoe and Paul Martin (2008) have analysed the orientation of social studies of science and technology researchers towards genomics. They distinguish between those who take a contextual approach and those who frame their analyses in terms of transformations in genetics. Moreover, the intensification of concerns about power-knowledge (initiated by, but

carried beyond, the work of Michel Foucault; Foucault 1980) has added further dimensions to the connotations of the term representation with significance for genomics. Foucault’s hyphenated neologism – power-knowledge – underscored his insistence that there is no neutral version of knowledge and that knowledge is always embedded in the capillaries of power relations. This has had profound consequences for the concept of representation since it implies that the cognitive and political versions of the term cannot be neatly pried apart: it suggests that every representation is political in some sense or in some way. Foucault’s concept of power-knowledge resonated with developments in social studies of science which, since the 1980s, through the perspectives of ‘the Edinburgh School’ (Bloor 1976) and other influences, had increasingly turned its attention to scientific knowledge. The Foucauldian notion of power-knowledge has intensified awareness of the political dimensions of science and encouraged broader investigations of its politics (e.g. Latour 1993; Mol 1999). Sensitivity to power-knowledge seems appropriate for those studying genomics before

and after the flurry of investment (in many senses) in genomics in the wake of the highly orchestrated millennial announcements about the ‘completion’ of the Human Genome Project. Nevertheless, as the following chapters indicate, deciphering genomics involves the study of a diverse and changing repertoire of representations, in many different locations.

These sites might include, but are by no means limited to: laboratories, clinics, art galleries, museums, court hearings, ancestral websites, press conferences, newspaper and magazine articles, focus group meetings, biobanks, counselling centres. Vivid language and striking imagery has featured in the new genetics: ‘code of codes’, ‘book of life’, ‘Frankenfoods’, Dolly the Sheep (Franklin 2007), ‘designer babies’ (Franklin and Roberts 2007) together with images evoking human enhancement and longevity. Moreover, new imaging and data-generating technologies have been the engines of genomics. While this section of the Handbook does not pretend to cover this varied representational terrain comprehensively, each of the contributions brings fresh perspectives to some of its features. Moreover, the conceptualisation and language of representations has evolved in dia-

logue with this biotechnology as researchers register and analyse its significant actors and activities. These range from the novel exchanges between artists and genomic scientists as artists ‘experiment’ with new life forms and take up residences in laboratories, the emergence of ‘lay researchers’ within patient support groups and distinctive uses of the internet to generate and exchange genomic information. For example, science and technology researchers have observed the proliferation of social and political movements focused on and stakeholders invested in this biotechnology. They have also noted their distinctive formations, including the clustering of patient (and their supporters) groups in organisational coalitions (e.g. the Genetic Alliance in the USA and the Genetic Interest Group in the UK), which Epstein terms ‘supergroups’, that identify under the label of ‘genetic conditions’ (Heath et al. 2004; Epstein 2008: 505, 512). Against this background, analysts have sought appropriate and precise terminology in studying patterns of expectations, fears, dilemmas and contestations and of the distinctive identities which have featured in the politics of genomics and biotechnology since the last decades of the twentieth century. In fact, commentators have coined, wielded and debated a number of terms which highlight the forms of politics associated with recent developments in biotechnology, including ‘biopolitics’ (Foucault), ‘biosociality’ (Rabinow 1996) and ‘genetic citizenship’ (Heath et al. 2003). While they might take differing attitudes to the issues and patterns traced above, the

authors of the chapters which follow in this section are all aware of the challenges around the deployment of the concept of representations within social studies of genomics. In diverse ways they have pursued and fleshed out its significance and resonances for developments in and around genomics, mindful of the need for a ‘critical hermeneutics’ (Haraway 1997: 16) of the new genetics.