Human genes and neoliberal governance : a Foucauldian critique / Antoinette Rouvroy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rouvroy, Antoinette.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human genetics--Law and legislation.

Human genetics.

Human genetics--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xii, 303 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Abingdon [England] ; New York : Routledge-Cavendish, 2008.

Summary:

Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, among others, Human Genes and Neoliberal Governance shows how the privileging of genetic explanations about individual risks, over environmental and socioeconomic factors, reflects both a metaphysical and a political complicity between 'geneticisation' and neoliberalism. The 'new human genetics' does not transform what it is to be human as much as shift the place we look at when we try to characterise commonalities and variations among the human species. The 'genetic revolution' is above all a perceptual revolution, and in the first part of this book Antoinette Rouvroy explores the social, political and economic conditions and consequences of this new 'perceptual regime'.

In the second part of this book she pursues her analysis through a consideration of the impact of 'geneticisation' on political support of the welfare state, and on the operation of private health and life insurance. Genetics and neoliberalism, she argues, are complicit in fostering the belief that social and economic patterns have a fixed nature beyond the reach of democratic deliberation, and that the characteristics of individuals are unusually plastic, and within the scope of individual choice and responsibility. 'Geneticisation', it is concluded, has come to provide a questionable and largely unacknowledged support for neoliberal governance.

Contents:

The production of genetic knowledge

The scientific and economic strength of genetic reductionism

Policy implications : discourses of genetic enlightenment as new disciplinary devices

Genetic conceptualisations of 'normality' and the idea of genetic justice

Beyond genetic universality and authenticity : the lure of the 'genetic underclass'

Previews of the future as background

A critical assessment of economic and actuarial perspective on genetics and insurance

Practical and normative arguments against 'genetic exceptionalist' legislation

The changing social role of private insurance : 'risk' as a new representational regime.

Notes:

"A GlassHouse book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-293) and index.

ISBN:

9780415444330

0415444330

9780203939390

0203939395

OCLC:

122309108