Do-It-Yourself biology as Jacques Rancière's Icaria
Do-It-Yourself biology as Jacques Rancière's Icaria

Summary/Abstract: Do-It-Yourself biology, or DIYbio, is a contemporary movement that makes claims of equality in its practice of scientific research. The people that join DIYbio are hacking biotechnology in the same way that hackers use information technology. These biohackers are spread world-wide in community laboratories that work similarly to squats. In this article, we explore the identity of this movement and how it is related on the one hand to institutional biotechnology research, and, on the other hand, to open source culture. On equality, we follow the thinking of the eminent French thinker Jacques Rancière. The claims put forward by DIYbio work as a re-enactment of a community of equals as described by Rancière. Moreover, a parallelism can be made with the Icaria settlement in the end of the XIX century, which tried to relive Marx's egalitarian vision. Equality gains substance and makes sense through events of community affirmation. Another lesson, taken from Icaria by Rancière, works as a warning to the biohackers: to claim equality in the unequal world of work can come to make the movement subdued by capitalism.

• Details
• Contents