Biopolitics and Utopia

Biopolitics and Utopia

Palgrave Series in Bioethics and Public Policy Biotechnology continues to impact populations in myriad ways influencing contemporary issues in food supply, genetic therapy, health care, biosecurity, terrorism, criminal justice, food supply, and environmental engineering, among many other aspects of daily life. The Palgrave Series in Bioethics and Public Policy seeks to promote interdisciplinary research that analyzes and assesses the social, environmental, and moral ramifications of where this technology is taking us. With a wide range of topics within bioethics open to the series, this series provides a home for cutting-edge research that bridges the divide between the natural and social sciences. This series will also attract a dynamic and varied assortment of scholars to provide comprehensive evaluations of where biotechnology is taking our society and most importantly, if these directions are being forged appropriately and ethically. Series editor: Sheldon Krimsky Sheldon Krimsky is the Lenore Stern Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences and adjunct professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University, USA. Professor Krimsky is the author, coauthor, and editor of 14 books including Genetic Justice: DNA Databanks, Criminal Investigations, and Civil Liberties, awarded a gold medal by the Independent Publishers in 2011. Professor Krimsky served on the National Institutes of Health s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and was a consultant to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research and to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Recently, he served as associate editor, for Bioethics, 2014, a reference volume for the field. Regulating Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis in the United States: The Limits of Unlimited Selection (2015) By Michele Bayefsky and Bruce Jennings Biopolitics and Utopia: An Interdisciplinary Reader (2015) Edited by Patricia Stapleton and Andrew Byers

Biopolitics and Utopia An Interdisciplinary Reader Edited by Patricia Stapleton and Andrew Byers

BIOPOLITICS AND UTOPIA Copyright Patricia Stapleton and Andrew Byers, 2015. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-51474-5 All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-70318-0 ISBN 978-1-137-51475-2 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137514752 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Biopolitics and utopia : an interdisciplinary reader / edited by Patricia Stapleton and Andrew Byers. pages cm. (Palgrave series in bioethics and public policy) Summary: Biopolitics and Utopia explores the intersection of biopolitics and utopian thought. As an interdisciplinary work, it addresses many salient biopolitical issues (state and medical interventions in the body, fears over scientific progress, resistance to state biopower, and ethical concerns), while also engaging in the utopian drive behind biopolitical efforts. The book is structured into four main sections: Actions, Speculations, Reactions, and Reflections. The chapters in Actions examine the practices of direct, medical intervention to normalize citizens bodies. The next section, Speculations, approaches the intersection of utopia and biopolitics through a literary lens, reviewing science fiction texts as expressions of cultural and social fears about scientific progress. Reactions outlines potential acts of resistance in the face of biopower. Finally, Reflections offers a more philosophical essay, which engages the reader in the potential for creating an ethics for scientific standards Provided by publisher. Summary: This reader offers a fascinating exploration of the intersection of biopolitics and utopia by employing a range of theoretical approaches. Each essay provides a unique application of the two concepts to topics spanning the social sciences and humanities Provided by publisher. 1. Biopolitics. 2. Utopias. 3. Biotechnology Moral and ethical aspects. I. Stapleton, Patricia. II. Byers, Andrew. JA80.B548 2015 321.07 dc23 2014048055 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents List of Figures and Tables Permissions Acknowledgments vii viii ix Introduction 1 Andrew Byers and Patricia Stapleton Part I Actions 1 American Bodies in a Time of War: The Militarized Body as a Utopian Space and Biopolitical Project for the State 13 Andrew Byers 2 Abnormals or Exceptions : The Use of Technologies for Intersex People and People with Disabilities 41 Arpita Das 3 The Inauspicious Regulatory Beginnings of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis 63 Patricia Stapleton Part II Speculations 4 Utopian Visions of Making People : Science Fiction and Debates on Cloning, Ectogenesis, Genetic Engineering, and Genetic Discrimination 89 Evie Kendal 5 Decolonizing the Future: Biopolitics, Ethics, and Foresight through the Lens of Science Fiction 119 Selena Middleton

vi Contents Part III Reactions 6 All Day, All Week, Occupy Wall Street! : Space, Biopower, and Resistance 141 Elena L. Cohen 7 Eating for the Future: Veganism and the Challenge of In Vitro Meat 167 Rasmus R. Simonsen Part IV Reflections 8 Utopia and Biopolitics: The Need for an Ethics in Biotechnology 193 Cameron Barrows List of Contributors 203 Index 207

Figures and Tables Figures 6.1 Notice of temporary access change 145 6.2 Zuccotti Park 147 6.3 Homeland security intelligence document 148 7.1 Disembodied Cuisine growing the steaks 173 7.2 Disembodied Cuisine 174 7.3 Disembodied Cuisine 174 7.4 Disembodied Cuisine dinner 175 7.5 Victimless Leather 175 Tables 1.1 Overall draft and rejection statistics, by twentieth-century war 28 3.1 ART fertility clinic success rates reports for 2010, 2011, and 2012 66

Permissions All images in chapter 7 Eating for the Future: Veganism and the Challenge of In Vitro Meat by Rasmus Simonsen, are courtesy of the Tissue Culture and Art Project (Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr). Hosted at SymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. The image credits are as under: Title: Tissue Engineered Steak No.1 2000 study for Disembodied Cuisine Artists: The Tissue Culture and Art Project (Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr) Medium: Pre-natal sheep skeletal muscle and degradable PGA polymer scaffold. Date: 2000 01 Photography: Ionat Zurr Explanatory information: Part of Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr Research Fellowship in the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, MGH, Harvard Medical School. Title: Tissue Engineered Steak No.1 2000 study for Disembodied Cuisine Artists: The Tissue Culture and Art Project (Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr) Medium: Pre-natal sheep skeletal muscle and degradable PGA polymer scaffold, a micro gravity bioreactor. Photography: Ionat Zurr Date: 2000 01 Part of Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr Research Fellowship in the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, MGH, Harvard Medical School. Title: Disembodied Cuisine Installation Nantes France 2003 Artists: The Tissue Culture and Art Project (Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr) Date: 2003 Photography: Axel Heise

Acknowledgments Andrew Byers: An excerpt of this chapter was presented at the 38th annual conference of the Society for Utopian Studies in Charleston, South Carolina, in November 2013. The author would like to thank the organizers and attendees of the conference as well as the following scholars who have kindly provided guidance and feedback on this project: Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers, Patricia Stapleton, Claire Curtis, Thomas Cassidy, Peter Stillman, Francesco Crocco, and Kenneth Roemer. Any mistakes in this chapter remain the sole responsibility of the author. Questions and comments are welcome; readers are invited to contact the author at andrew.byers@gmail.com. Elena Cohen: The author would like to thank Rosalind Petchesky, Christina Quintana, Patricia Stapleton, and Andrew Byers for their guidance and feedback on this project. Any mistakes in this chapter remain the sole responsibility of the author. Questions and comments are welcome; readers are invited to contact the author at ecohen1@gradcenter.cuny.edu. Evie Kendal: The author would like to acknowledge Catherine Mills, Andrew Milner, Olivia Khoo, and Ryan Tonkens for their valuable advice and input. Patricia Stapleton: An excerpt of this chapter was presented at the 38th annual conference of the Society for Utopian Studies in Charleston, South Carolina, in November 2013. The author would like to thank the organizers and attendees of the conference, as well as the following people who have kindly provided guidance and feedback on this project: Andrew Byers, Claire Curtis, Kate Broad, Carrie Hintz, and Adam Luskin. Any mistakes in this chapter remain the sole responsibility of the author. Questions and comments are welcome; readers are invited to contact the author at pastapleton@wpi.edu.