Knowing New Biotechnologies: Social Aspects of Technological Convergence

The concept of Converging Technologies has been a significant element of science policy discourse in North America, the European Union and other OECD countries since the 1990s. The driving assumption has been that the coming together of different, compatible technologies will bring about beneficial and widespread social and economic changes. This collected volume proposes a new comprehensive approach to thinking and analysing the concept of Converging Technologies, aiming to invigorate the debate by paying attention to the role that social organisation has in the emergence of technology convergence. The overarching argument of the volume contends that social factors not only accompany and contribute to but, more significantly, shape technological convergences. At the interface of scientific research, citizen science, commerce and healthcare, new social identities and relationships emerge, changing the social organisation of technology development and application. The authors of the empirically informed chapters in this book put forward different perspectives to help us understand convergence dynamics, logics and processes and the way they can be governed. Each chapter explores and discusses an aspect of the new biotechnologies, using an example from either the field of personal genomics, including Direct-To-Consumer genetic testing, or that of Do-It-Yourself biology, including synthetic biology.