CRISPR States - Genome Editing as a Biopolitical Means
Channel: Guillaume LEVRIER
Date: 05/09/2020

Presentation made at the EASST/4S 2020 - https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/

The political struggle over genome editing since the CRISPR-Cas9 “breakthrough” has so far brought into play epistemic communities which stemmed from prior controversies. The categorization debate over genome-edited plants in Europe (should those be considered as GMOs or not) has been led by Green activists who had been fighting the patenting of vegetal traits for more than thirty years. The germline editing debate has mostly seen the re-enactment of the prior abortion, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) debates by similar social actors. 

Yet the biopolitical implications of genome editing for state actors is seldom being discussed. How is it that what CRISPR changes to our contemporary states’ powers is not being asked more explicitly? And what would asking this question entail to our conceptions of what states powers’ can be?