ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the anatomy of the emergent – or proto-– politics of genomics, situating primary data gathered within the UK in the context of an increasingly networked social movement milieu (Castells 1996a; Chesters and Welsh 2005; Welsh, et al. 2005). In focusing on these nascent moments of social and cultural deliberation we extend the classic conception of politics as the formalisation and expression of interests through representative and administrative institutions to include what Melucci (1989, 1996) has termed ‘latency periods’. These periods are the times when emergent‘stakes’ are actively negotiated as new phenomena begin to challenge existing experiential and analytical categories. Analytically, it is important to recognise that such work typically takes place prior to publicly visible mobilisations as part of a ‘shadow realm’ (Welsh 2002). In the case of genomic science, the seeds of this political engagement and mobilisation arise from the potential for new techniques and technologies to cut across disciplinary boundaries in both the social and natural sciences, to perturb established conceptual vocabularies and to recast established identities and roles. EU member states, such as the UK, with a commitment to consultation
and transparency, have conducted numerous public engagement exercises amidst increasing attention to the role of health social movements (Brown and Zavestoski 2005). As such, genomics is ‘emerging’ within a rather different climate to earlier ‘big’ science advances, such as nuclear power and computing, where major applications were typically formalised before public engagement took place (Radkau 1995; Kepplinger 1995; Nelkin 1995). In contrast, public engagement with genomics is being encouraged and actively sought before major applications are formalised, providing a unique opportunity to ‘map’ the process of emergence in the context of multi-layered governance approaches. In approaching these debates, we distinguish between different social
actors and institutions (e.g., science, civil society, regulatory agencies) but do not assign any group to one ‘side’ or another. Instead, we find that
members of each group of actors frequently appears in different categories depending on the specific issue or application in question. This in itself is a significant finding, confounding the dualistic pro/anti-positioning that has historically dominated the science and technology literature (Welsh 2000) and suggesting that ambivalence is a defining feature of the process of emergence. We suggest that this process of emergence is marked by significant identity work as the traditional repertoires of political, regulatory and civil society actors encounter unfamiliar challenges. Whilst it may be the case that this ambivalence will become transformed over time into more substantive and simplified forms of political interest representation, this is part of a longer project. Here, we confine ourselves to presenting the key features of the proto-
politics of genomics as issues such as consent, acceptability and scope of application begin to become tangible for individuals and societies (see Habermas 2003). We begin by clarifying how we view the problems of public engagement with what is still a largely unknown quantity. We then provide a tentative social anatomy, in which we distinguish between different types of participants and explore the sometimes unexpected ways in which they find themselves aligning with respect to genomics. Next, we briefly explore the implications of the emerging networks of civil society engagement upon the ways in which genetics can be framed within public debate and conclude by returning to the problem of participation.
