The Alienation of Body Tissue and the Biopolitics of Immortalized Cell Lines

Bibliographic Data

ID3133556
AuthorsMargaret Lock (Department of Social Studies and Medicine and the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, Montreal., corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume7
Issue2-3
Pages63-91
Publication date2001-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBody & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1357-034X • E-ISSN: 1460-3632
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1357034x0100700204
OpenAlexW2085654533
LanguageEN
Citations received50
References cited37

The alienation of body parts and their transformation into commodities raises questions about ownership, property rights, and about possible violation of the moral order. This article focuses on the `social life' of objects, including body parts, and the multiple meanings attached to them that are made visible in systems of exchange. The transformation of DNA obtained in blood samples into immortalized cell lines for use in the Human Genome Diversity Project is introduced as an illustration of contested commodification. The meanings attached to the blood samples by those from whom they are procured and their worth to the scientists who create the cell lines are of an entirely different order. Disputes about the HGDP that have erupted since it was first planned are presented in detail, followed by a discussion of the ethics of gene prospecting and the associated politics of biocapitalism currently proliferating in the private sector

Aesthetics · Alienation · Biology · Biopower · Business · Commodification · Economics · Economy · Environmental ethics · Gene · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation · Ethics in Clinical Research · Law · Philosophy · Race, Genetics, and Society · Genetics

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