Futures talk

The invocation of the future permeates genetics/genomics discourse; key futures talk can be summarised as ‘future promise’ (Brown and Michael 2003) and ‘future risk’. Importantly, both are contested future territory; what counts as a risk, or a benefit? Benefits; progress; risk; hope; hype; predictability; uncertainty; ‘futures trading’; ‘future good’ (altruism on behalf of future generations), are all important forms of futures talk, discussed in this chapter. The invoked future in genetics discourse is based on a projection of the present, based both on the values people (and groups, institutions, cultures, societies) hold, and their socio-political and economic predictions, assessments and imperatives about where ‘the science’ will, might or should go. Thus future predictions are based on competing accounts of current worldviews, and can be seen as a means of persuasion about why specific courses of action should or shouldn’t be followed. This idea of the future, multiple futures, based on fluid, subjective accounts of the present, shaped by political, social and economic forces, has been recently raised in relation to nanotechnology (Nordmann 2008). Throughout the book, we have seen how specific groups – especially amongst ‘sustainability citizenship’ networks – have critiqued the power relations and vested interests which enable others to have more influence in setting the stakes of the debate; and hence to colonise the future with a specific account. For example, chapter 4 and chapter 5 identified links between the demands of the ‘bio-economy’ and ‘future promise’ discourse about what the scientific and economic benefits will be, as framed by specific actor groups; a form of ‘futures trading’. Certain discourses with a very powerful resonance such as a patient’s hopes

for a cure, or promissory discourse on personalised pharmaco are thus staking strong claims on the future. This puts groups with less public visibility and power, or those whose frames have less immediate ‘purchase’, at a disadvantage, as they are not able to frame their own visions of the future on their own terms, but only in relation to the future framing of others; a key complaint raised repeatedly in relation to policy consultations, as we have seen. Certain groups, wary of the ways and means by which genetic science is

being introduced into society, are more predisposed to identify risks and grievances arising from the way the future is being framed by others or implicit in these accounts and procedures. Such risk framings are generally based on past experience, for example of environmental controversies (Nelkin 1995; Plows and Reinsborough 2008), which tend to be heard less over ‘future promise’ accounts, even though risk management is a key regulatory principle. However prime movers are also resisting this reactive risk framing, wanting instead to focus on what they are for; to put forward their own ‘future promise’ accounts. It is, however, harder to get these essentially non-genetic discourses (such as poverty alleviation) framed in what can be extremely geneticised debates, for example, in terms of how future generations will be healthy (chapter 6). Futures discourse, especially future promise, has profound implications for

policy; how health budgets are spent, for example. Genetic ‘progress’ (advances, benefits) is defined in terms of maximising health: but the definition of health and routes to achieve it are complex territory (chapter 6). Future accounts of genetics are of particular relevance in terms of the impacts they are having on, for example:

health policy social policy economics: futures trading, investment law – (for example, the HFEA Act 2008) reflection of cultural values – what counts as ‘progress’.