Ordinary Genomes Science, Citizenship, and Genetic Identities - Experimental Futures
Paperback (17 Dec 2009)
- $30.52
Includes delivery to the United States
10+ copies available online - Usually dispatched within two working days
Check stock
Ordinary Genomes is an ethnography of genomics, a global scientific enterprise, as it is understood and practiced in the Netherlands. Karen-Sue Taussig's analysis of the Dutch case illustrates how scientific knowledge and culture are entwined: Genetics may transform society, but society also transforms genetics. Taussig traces the experiences of Dutch people as they encounter genetics in research labs, clinics, the media, and everyday life. Through vivid descriptions of specific diagnostic processes, she illuminates the open and evolving nature of genetic categories, the ways that abnormal genetic diagnoses are normalized, and the ways that race, ethnicity, gender, and religion inform diagnoses. Taussig contends that in the Netherlands ideas about genetics are shaped by the desire for ordinariness and the commitment to tolerance, two highly-valued yet sometimes contradictory Dutch social ideals, as well as by Dutch history and concerns about immigration and European unification. She argues that the Dutch enable a social ideal of tolerance by demarcating and containing difference so as to minimize its social threat. It is within this particular construction of tolerance that the Dutch manage the meaning of genetic difference.
Book information
ISBN: | 9780822345343 |
Publisher: | Duke University Press Books |
Imprint: | Duke University Press |
Pub date: | 17 Dec 2009 |
DEWEY: | 599.935 |
DEWEY edition: | 22 |
Language: | English |
Number of pages: | 256 |
Weight: | 384g |
Height: | 234mm |
Width: | 155mm |
Spine width: | 16mm |