ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the ‘person’ in personalised medicine is variously imagined by science, society, and the state, producing overlapping yet distinct ‘publics’. It examines scientific framings of patients primarily as research subjects defined by biomarkers, often detached from lived experience, and considers the implications of inclusion and exclusion in biomarker-driven research. Societal imaginaries are traced through roles as consumers, patients, and resisters – ranging from empowered self-trackers and biohackers to those resisting datafication, responsibilisation, and surveillance. State imaginaries, meanwhile, cast citizens as contributors to communitarian projects, altruistically sharing data and engaging in governance, but also as beneficiaries with rights to healthcare and as potential mobilised counterpublics. Across these perspectives, this chapter shows how imaginaries are shaped by political, economic, and technological imperatives, and how they intersect in complex ways within the same individuals. It argues that reconciling these divergent framings is essential if personalised medicine is to achieve its promises equitably, noting that mismatches – such as excluding biomarker-negative groups from both research benefits and policy imaginaries – pose significant challenges for implementation.
