Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Enterprising or altruistic selves?
T2 - making up research subjects in genetics research
AU - Tutton, Richard
AU - Prainsack, Barbara
N1 - © 2011 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2011 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
PY - 2011/11
Y1 - 2011/11
N2 - The emergence of direct-to-consumer (DTC) personal genomics companies in 2007 was accompanied by considerable media attention and criticism from clinical geneticists and other health professionals, regulators, policy advisors, and ethicists. As well as offering genetic testing services, some firms are also engaged in building their own databases and conducting research with the data obtained from their customers. In this paper, we examine how one of these companies, 23andMe, is creating a certain kind of 'research subject' in opposition to that constituted in conventional forms of disease research. Drawing on debates about neoliberalism, contemporary health discourses and subjectivity, we consider two kinds of subjectivities produced through the discursive and material practices of 23andMe and UK Biobank, namely, 'enterprising' and 'altruistic' selves. We argue that the 23andMe model promotes the idea that curiosity about one's genome on the one hand, and participation in research on the other, are not only compatible but complementary aspects of being an entrepreneurial subject of contemporary health and medicine framed by the technologies of web 2.0.
AB - The emergence of direct-to-consumer (DTC) personal genomics companies in 2007 was accompanied by considerable media attention and criticism from clinical geneticists and other health professionals, regulators, policy advisors, and ethicists. As well as offering genetic testing services, some firms are also engaged in building their own databases and conducting research with the data obtained from their customers. In this paper, we examine how one of these companies, 23andMe, is creating a certain kind of 'research subject' in opposition to that constituted in conventional forms of disease research. Drawing on debates about neoliberalism, contemporary health discourses and subjectivity, we consider two kinds of subjectivities produced through the discursive and material practices of 23andMe and UK Biobank, namely, 'enterprising' and 'altruistic' selves. We argue that the 23andMe model promotes the idea that curiosity about one's genome on the one hand, and participation in research on the other, are not only compatible but complementary aspects of being an entrepreneurial subject of contemporary health and medicine framed by the technologies of web 2.0.
KW - research participation
KW - personal genomics
KW - subjectivity
KW - internet
KW - biobanking
U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01348.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01348.x
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 21507012
VL - 33
SP - 1081
EP - 1095
JO - Sociology of Health and Illness
JF - Sociology of Health and Illness
SN - 0141-9889
IS - 7
ER -