ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an over view of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book conceptualises these different life forms as what people shall call bio-objects. Bio-objects play a crucial role in the 21st century in which increasing knowledge of life and its components are fundamentally transforming what life means and where its boundaries lie: as Thacker says, it seems that life is everywhere at stake, and yet it is nowhere the same. The book examines the changing boundaries of the human, nonhuman and society as a result of emergence of new bio-objects. It concentrates on the governance of new bio-objects and the social regulations involved in the boundary shifts that they bring about. The book looks at different aspects, covering the governance of hereditary diseases, regulation of cloned animal products, different forms of public engagement with GMOs, governance regimes around tissue banks and the paradoxes involved in the governance of life-not-yet-born through new testing technologies.
