Figure 1 Technological field

This affect-and agency-based approach depends on the notion that genetic technology and knowledge (apparently disembodied and abstract entities) act like ‘things’, and ‘things’ act like people (Strathern 1999, Gell 1998). Not in a Latourian sense, where rational self-interested actors strive to establish networks to advance their cause (eg, Latour and Woolgar 1985, Callon 1986, Latour 1988, 1996), but rather out of a complex of factors. As I have argued elsewhere, love, enchantment, fear and trepidation, sadness and above all a sense of desire to engage with moral values guide actions in relation to the genetic technology and to other agents in the field.