Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate

Published by Duke University Press 2010

Asian Biotech

Ethics and Communities of Fate

Edited by: Aihwa Ong , Nancy N. Chen , Michael M. J. Fischer and Joseph Dumit
With contributions by: Kaushik Sunder Rajan and Charis Thompson

In the series Experimental futures : technological lives, scientific arts, anthropological voices

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393207

Overview
Contents

About this book

Ethnographic analyses of emerging bioscientific enterprises in Asia, including genetically modified foods in China, clinical trials in India, and stem-cell research in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Author / Editor information

Aihwa Ong is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty and Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, both also published by Duke University Press.

Nancy N. Chen is Professor of Anthropology at Scripps College. She is the author of Food, Medicine, and the Quest for Good Health and Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China.

Reviews

“Asian Biotech is a thoughtful examination of Asia’s biotechnology development. The call to understand this realm in terms of situated ethics and communities of fate is persuasive and invites the analysis of more cases to test the robustness of these concepts.” - Wen-Hua Kuo, The China Quarterly

“[W]hat bioethicists could learn from anthropological investigations like those presented in this volume is that one should consider the social and cultural contexts in which the practice to be ethically assessed is embedded in order to understand the the practice more thoroughly. And it is this more thorough understanding which will lead to a more nuanced and better refined ethical judgment.” - Soraj Hongladarom, Genomics, Society, and Policy

“I for one would strongly recommend this interesting volume to anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of biotech in Asia.” - Krishna Ravi Srinivas, Asian Biotech and Development Review

“[T]his book performs coverage of a region and a complicated sector of the twenty-frst-century economy, and it will certainly prove useful to those interested in globalized medicine and the fast-changing norms regulating research in biomedicine.” - Thomas Cannavino, Cultural Critique

“This timely and important collection by science-studies scholars provides fascinating glimpses into the ambitious efforts of several Asian countries to deploy biotechnologies to both generate economic growth and provide biosecurity in this age of global science and technology.” - Doogab Yi, Chemical Heritage

“The need in science studies and anthropology for Asian Biotech would be hard to overstate. I was hungry for this book to use in my own teaching and writing, and the meal is as satisfying as I had anticipated. The theoretical framing is astute and generative, and the well-argued and diverse essays are thoroughly fleshed out historically and ethnographically. Nancy N. Chen, Aihwa Ong, and the contributors deserve our thanks. We have just run out of excuses for ongoing Western parochialism in science and technology studies and all of our kindred inquiries into biotechnology.”—Donna Haraway, author of When Species Meet

“This exciting collection of ethnographic essays introduces readers to the deployment of specific biotechnologies in Asia, revealing their enmeshment with local and global politics and a situated ethics that extends to the good of families, communities, and nations, and not merely that of individuals. This book, harbinger of impending futures, demands introspection.”—Margaret Lock, author of Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death

”This is the first broad anthropological examination of the biotech movement across Asia. Especially useful are the efforts at understanding how biotechnology affects (and is affected by) major changes in moral experience and ethical imagination that are roiling Asian modernities. A pathbreaking exploration! This collection will be influential.”—Arthur Kleinman, Director, Asia Center, Harvard University

“Asian Biotech is a thoughtful examination of Asia’s biotechnology development. The call to understand this realm in terms of situated ethics and communities of fate is persuasive and invites the analysis of more cases to test the robustness of these concepts.”

-- Wen-Hua Kuo The China Quarterly

“[T]his book performs coverage of a region and a complicated sector of the twenty-frst-century economy, and it will certainly prove useful to those interested in globalized medicine and the fast-changing norms regulating research in biomedicine.”

-- Thomas Cannavino Cultural Critique

“What bioethicists could learn from anthropological investigations like those presented in this volume is that one should consider the social and cultural contexts in which the practice to be ethically assessed is embedded in order to understand the the practice more thoroughly. And it is this more thorough understanding which will lead to a more nuanced and better refined ethical judgment.”

-- Soraj Hongladarom Genomics, Society and Policy

“I for one would strongly recommend this interesting volume to anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of biotech in Asia.”

-- Krishna Ravi Srinivas Asian Biotech and Development Review

“This timely and important collection by science-studies scholars provides fascinating glimpses into the ambitious efforts of several Asian countries to deploy biotechnologies to both generate economic growth and provide biosecurity in this age of global science and technology.”

-- Doogab Yi Chemical Heritage

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: An Analytics of Biotechnology and Ethics at Multiple Scales Aihwa Ong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. EXCESS AND OPPORTUNITY
The Experimental Machinery of Global Clinical Trials: Case Studies from India Kaushik Sunder Rajan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Feeding the Nation: Chinese Biotechnology and Genetically Modified Foods Nancy N. Chen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
PART II. BIOVENTURES
Asian Regeneration? Nationalism and Internationalism in Stem Cell Research in South Korea and Singapore Charis Thompson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Medical Tourism in Thailand Ara Wilson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Near-Liberalism: Global Corporate Citizenship and Pharmaceutical Marketing in India Stefan Ecks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
PART III. COMMUNITIES OF FATE
Governing through Blood: Biology, Donation, and Exchange in Urban China Vincanne Adams, Kathleen Erwin and Phouc V. Le Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Lifelines: The Ethics of Blood Banking for Family and Beyond Aihwa Ong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	190
Embryo Controversies and Governing Stem Cell Research in Japan: How to Regulate Regenerative Futures Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
PART IV. BIOSOVEREIGNTY: MAPPINGS OF CHINESENESS
Making Taiwanese (Stem Cells): Identity, Genetics, and Hybridity Jennifer A. Liu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Chinese DNA: Genomics and Bionation Wen-Ching Sung Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Afterword: Asia’s Biotech Bloom Nancy N. Chen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 344
Illustrations
- Other: 3 illustrations

eBook

Published: November 5, 2010
ISBN: 9780822393207