Modern Genes : Body, Rationality and Ambivalence
Author
Summary, in English
The four individual articles show that the experiences of the affected individuals that were captured in the interviews were not the only representations of Huntington’s disease. Instead, these experiences were challenged by representations offered by genetic science, which provided representations of our body that depart from the way we ordinarily experience and perceive our bodies in daily life. They were also the legal representations used by the welfare system in order to evaluate the everyday situation of the participants when they applied for assistance from the welfare system. The presence of these two institutions, science and the welfare society, led to the notion of modernity, since these two institutions can be characterized as systems through their use of instrumental rationality for achieving their objectives. This divergence between the lifeworld of the affected individuals and the representations brought forward by the system gave rise to ambivalences that offered forms of cultural and social change.
These forms of cultural and social change were seen in conjunction to so-called “Third spaces” which can be characterized as a site where the sharp distinction between lifeworld and system becomes less sharp and less dichotomous and where new forms of engagements can be established as a consequence of the sort of empowerment and negotiations take place. These “Third spaces” will then be important sites in which the implications of the scientific development within genetics and the biomedical sciences take shape in society. By investigating the link between everyday experiences with general cultural patterns of modernity, the thesis does then provide a deeper knowledge upon the interactions between genetic science, culture and society.
Department/s
- Division of Ethnology
- The Cultural Studies Group of Neuroscience
- MultiPark: Multidisciplinary research focused on Parkinson´s disease
Publishing year
2013
Language
English
Publication/Series
Lund Studies in Arts and Cultural Sciences
Volume
2
Full text
Document type
Dissertation
Publisher
Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University
Topic
- Cultural Studies
Keywords
- Everyday experiences
- Modernity
- Everyday Life
- Lifeworld
- System
- Genetics
- Huntington’s disease.
Status
Published
Research group
- The Cultural Studies Group of Neuroscience
Supervisor
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 978-91-7473-659-5 (print)
- ISBN: 978-91-7473-660-1 (pdf)
Defence date
4 October 2013
Defence time
10:00
Defence place
Kulturanatomen, Biskopsgatan 7, Lund, sal 201
Opponent
- Kristin Zeiler (Docent)