Nature, Risk and Responsibility: Discourses of Biotechnology

ISBN-13: 9780415922906 / Angielski / Twarda / 1999 / 232 str.

Patrick O'Mahony

Opis

"Nature, Risk and Responsibility" explores ethical interpretations of biotechnology and examines whether sufficient consensus exists or is emerging to enable this technology to occupy a significant role in the techno-economic, social and cultural order.
The contributors address the nature and prospective implications of biotechnologies for nature, life and social organization. This collection assesses the discourses of biotechnology and asks what a responsible society is when nature itself is engineered. Drawing from a wide range of social theories, the contributors evaluate the risks and proposes some of the key strategies for the future.

Recenzje

"This volume attempts to address a topic of considerable importance to our contemporary world. It raises issues about which sociologists should be informed." -- Lawrence Busch, Contemporary Sociology

Spis treści

Acknowledgements -- Notes on the Contributors -- Introduction: Biotechnology, Uncertainty and Contestation /Patrick O ’Mahony -- Part I Theoretical Reflections on Biotechnology and Responsibility -- 1 The Civilisation of the Gene: Biotechnological Risk Framed in the Responsibility Discourse /Piet Strydom -- 2 Biopolitics in the Risk Society: the Possibility of a Global Ethic of Societal Responsibility /Gerard Delanty -- 3 Biotechnology as Expertise Barry Barnes -- Part II Constructing Values: Public Communication on Biotechnology -- 4 Shifting Debates on New Reproductive Technology: Implications for Public Discourse in Ireland /Orla McDonnell -- 5 Biotechnological Communication and the Socio-Cultural Embeddedness of Economic Actors /Marion Dreyer -- 6 Constructing Difference: Discourse Coalitions on Biotechnology in the Press /Patrick Oy Mahony and Tracey Skillington -- Part III The Dynamics of Institutionalisation: Juridification and Regulation of Biotechnology -- 7 Public Representation and the Legal Regulation of Assisted Conception in Britain /John Murphy -- 8 Discourse Formations and Constellations of Conflict: Problems of Public Participation in the German Debate on Genetically Altered Plants /Alfons Bora -- 9 Law and the Cultural Construction of Nature: -- Biotechnology and the European Legal Framework /Christian Byk -- 10 Bio-patenting and Innovation: Nomads of the Present and a New Global Order /Ruth McNally and Peter Wheale -- Part IV Concluding Reflections -- 11 Modernity’s Organic Economy of Governmentality /Tracey Skillington -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

O autorze

Patrick O'Mahony is Director of the Centre for European Social Research, University College, Cork. He is co-author of Rethinking Irish History (1998).