Biocapital

Rajan Kaushik Sunder Rajan Sunder

Description

Biocapital is a major theoretical contribution to science studies and political economy. Grounding his analysis in a multi-sited ethnography of genomic research and drug development marketplaces in the United States and India, Kaushik Sunder Rajan argues that contemporary biotechnologies such as genomics can only be understood in relation to the economic markets within which they emerge. Sunder Rajan conducted fieldwork in biotechnology labs and in small start-up companies in the United States (mostly in the San Francisco Bay area) and India (mainly in New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bombay) over a five-year period spanning 1999 to 2004. He draws on his research with scientists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and policymakers to compare drug development in the two countries, examining the practices and goals of research, the financing mechanisms, the relevant government regulations, and the hype and marketing surrounding promising new technologies. In the process, he illuminates the global flow of ideas, information, capital, and people connected to biotech initiatives.Sunder Rajan's ethnography informs his theoretically sophisticated inquiry into how the contemporary world is shaped by the marriage of biotechnology and market forces, by what he calls technoscientific capitalism. Bringing Marxian theories of value into conversation with Foucaultian notions of biopolitics, he traces how the life sciences came to be significant producers of both economic and epistemic value in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first.

Sujets

• Sciences et techniques
• USA
• Pharmaceutics
• Biomedical engineering
• États-Unis
• India

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 24 avril 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822388005
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Biocapital

Biocapital The Constitution of Postgenomic Life

dukeuniversitypress durhamandlondon 2006

Kaushik Sunder Rajan

∫2006 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Galliard by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data and republication acknowledgments appear on the last printed pages of this book.

For Appa and Amma

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Introduction: Capitalisms and Biotechnologies

ix 1

Part I. Circulations

1. Exchange and Value: Contradictions in Market Logic in American and Indian Genome Enterprises 39

2. Life and Debt: Global and Local Political Ecologies of Biocapital 77

Part II. Articulations

3. Vision and Hype: The Conjuration of Promissory Biocapitalist Futures 107

4. Promise and Fetish: Genomic Facts and Personalized Medicine, or Life Is a Business Plan 138

5. Salvation and Nation: Underlying Belief Structures of Biocapital 182

6. Entrepreneurs and Start-Ups: The Story of an E-learning Company 234

Coda:SurplusandSymptom

Notes References Index

277

289 315 327

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been made possible by a number of teachers, in the university and in the field. Each one has had something special to contribute toward my learning. I wish to thank Michael Fischer for sharing his deep and profound scholarship; Joe Dumit for teaching me how to read; Sheila Jasano√ for pass- ing on to me her deep ethical commitments about writing and intervention in multiple communities of practice (and, related to that, her important lectures to me on lucidity, not always heeded!); and Donna Haraway for her con- tagious energy and for pushing me to always think beyond boundaries. Learn- ing from them individually and collectively has been a privilege. No ethnographic work is possible without the informants who make it so. There are many who let me into their lifeworlds, in spite of the huge intrusion my work represented to their time. Many of these people live in worlds where information is guarded with almost paranoid zeal, which makes me even more thankful for the access they gave me. While there are many people who taught me about the worlds of the life sciences and capital, a few deserve special thanks. Mark Boguski made this project possible in the first place, both with his encouragement and by enabling me to attend the Cold Spring Harbor Genome Sequencing and Analysis meetings in 1999, giving me my first initia- tion into the worlds of genome scientists. At GeneEd, I was made to feel welcome not only as an observer but also as a friend. I wish to thank everyone there, especially Sunil Maulik, Salil Patel, Paul Eisele, and Mai Grant. At the Centre for Biochemical Technology, Samir Brahmachari and Manjari Mahajan were extremely generous with their time and insights. Thanks also to D. Bala-