Reordering Life: Knowledge and Control in the Genomics Revolution

If the “genomics revolution,” emblematized by the HumanGenome Project (HGP), has revolutionized biomedical sciences, it is not only in the sense that it has fundamentally shifted the ways biological life is defined and valorized, but also in the sense that it has transformed how biomedical knowledges are produced, circulated, and controlled in and beyond laboratories. The figure of high-throughput genome centers contrasted with ordinary “cottage industry” molecular laboratories, for instance, exemplifies a significant change in the material infrastructure and modes of knowledge production and collaboration in biomedical sciences. The genome center is not simply about taking advantage of economies of scale, as it entails a different mode of producing, sharing, and controlling knowledge. Stephen Hilgartner’s Reordering Life traces the changes in the “knowledge-control regimes” during the HGP. The knowledge-control regime refers to “a sociotechnical arrangement that constitutes categories of agents, spaces, objects, and relationships among them in a manner that allocates entitlements and burdens pertaining to knowledge” (9). Focusing on the strategic activities of the sociotechnical vanguards committed to the HGP, he draws attention to the dynamic process through which extant knowledge-control regimes are reordered during periods of transformative change in knowledge production. And, the process is not an arbitrary one. The sociotechnical vanguards make use of available cultural resources and practices that are already in place, and work with generic schemata that govern their interpretations and actions. The “organized set of schemata that provides a template that actors employ to guide action and interpretation” (12) is termed as a “governing frame.” The governing frame works like the modern state’s constitution by defining its elements and mapping the relationships among them in a generic manner, while leaving ambiguities when being applied to specific circumstances. Hilgarnter walks readers through how the sociotechnical vanguards, “a bit like a constitutional lawyer” (226), actively interpret, engage with, and reformulate extant categories, reasoning, and regimes of governance, as they seek not only to achieve a new paradigm in biology, but also to transform the existing