DNA Barcoding has been promoted since 2003 as a
new, fast, digital genomics-based means of identifying
natural species based on the idea that a small standard
fragment of any organism’s genome (a so-called
‘micro-genome’) can faithfully identify and help to
classify every species on the planet. The fear that
species are becoming extinct before they have ever been
known fuels barcoders, and the speed, scope, economy and
‘user-friendliness’ claimed for DNA barcoding, as part
of the larger ferment around the ‘genomics revolution’,
has also encouraged promises that it could inspire
humanity to reverse its biodiversity-destructive
habits. This book is based on six years of
ethnographic research on changing practices in the
identification and classification of natural species.
Informed both by Science and Technology Studies (STS)
and the anthropology of science, the authors analyse DNA
barcoding in the context of a sense of crisis –
concerning global biodiversity loss, but also the felt
inadequacy of taxonomic science to address such loss.
The authors chart the specific changes that this
innovation is propelling in the collecting, organizing,
analyzing, and archiving of biological specimens and
biodiversity data. As they do so they highlight the many
questions, ambiguities and contradictions that accompany
the quest to create a genomics-based environmental
technoscience dedicated to biodiversity protection. They
ask what it might mean to recognise ambiguity,
contradiction, and excess more publicly as a
constitutive part of this and other genomic
technosciences. Barcoding Nature will be of
interest to students and scholars of sociology of
science, science and technology studies, politics of the
environment, genomics and post-genomics, philosophy and
history of biology, and the anthropology of
science.
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