Singapore Biopolis

Bare Life in the City-State

Bibliographic Data

ID16860435
AuthorsCatherine Waldby (0000-0002-5989-9917, The University of Sydney, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume3
Issue2-3
Pages367-383
Publication date2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEast Asian Science Technology and Society An International Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1875-2152 • E-ISSN: 1875-2160
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1007/s12280-009-9089-2
OpenAlexW4252664142
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited26

In late 2003, the Singaporean government launched Biopolis, a life sciences technopole that brings key Singaporean biomedical research institutes together with global and local biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and governance bodies. The government has allocated generous funding to a range of biomedical research at Biopolis and adjacent academic and clinical institutes. Its stated aim is to make Singapore the Biopolis of Asia, the premier life sciences hub in a region where several much more populous states, notably China, India, and South Korea, are rapidly scaling up public investment in regenerative medicine and genomics. This paper will tease out what is at stake in the creation of Biopolis for the Singaporean state and population and what it can tell us about South East Asian governmentality and its bioeconomic and biopolitical aspirations and anxieties. In particular the paper engages with the implicit utopian vision of a regenerative bioeconomy evident in the Biopolis project. Biopolis is a site which brings together local and imported scientific expertise with the biological productivity of the multi-ethnic Singaporean population, who are understood as surrogates for the SE Asian population more generally. The ultimate aim of Biopolis, I argue, is to recalibrate the relationships between the biological and political life of the Singaporean population, and secure the economic future of the city-state, through the advanced research and development of Asia-specific medical biotechnology

Biopower · China · Corporate governance · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Governmentality · Management · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · State (computer science · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation · Biotechnology and Related Fields · Law · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Public Administration

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access