Engineering biology to save the planet ? : an analysis of the representations of the living carried by the sociotechnical imaginary of synthetic biology


Éloïse M Tanguay, Université de Montréal

Synthetic biology is a fast-growing technoscientific field whose main objective is to manufacture biological entities with commercial applications. In addition to its economic aims, promoters of synthetic biology present it under the label of "sustainable development," asserting that it offers a solution to the challenges posed by the ecological crisis. This type of promise appears to be at odds with the prevailing discourse on climate change, which emphasizes the adverse effects of industrial activities on all living beings and calls for a radical transformation of contemporary modes of production and consumption. Intensifying efforts to sidestep scrutiny of the industrial development model, synthetic biology promises contemporary societies a sustainable development model based on the manipulation of living organisms (Flocco and Guyonvarch, 2020). While some studies in social sciences highlight this general tendency, the relationship to living organisms that underlies it remains relatively unexplored. This relationship pertains to the ways in which living organisms are envisioned and described in the discourse of synthetic biology. Oscillating between degradation, protection, modification, and exploitation, this relationship is made particularly complex by biotechnological developments. To shed light on this relationship, this article examines the representations of life embedded in the sociotechnical imaginary of synthetic biology. Drawing from the concept of coproduction between technosciences and society, sociologist Sheila Jasanoff has developed the analytical framework of "sociotechnical imaginaries." These imaginaries, collectively shared, convey and propagate certain visions of a "desirable future" (Jasanoff, 2015: 4) achievable through technoscientific developments (Jasanoff, 2015). Based on particular ways of understanding the world, they are dependent on a social context, including representations, values, ideas, norms, etc. circulating within it. It is from this context that visions of what the future should be emerge, influencing the collectively adopted trajectory to implement these visions. To approach the sociotechnical imaginary of the ecological promises of synthetic biology, I adopt the perspective of the metaphors underlying it. According to the cognitive linguistics of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, metaphors allow the linking of abstract concepts to experiences closer to our lived reality (Lakoff and Johnson, [1980] 2003). Setting aside the theoretical and heuristic roles of metaphors, the objective is to focus on their communicative dimension, making them a social phenomenon (Hellsten, 2002). Specifically, I will examine the metaphors that, through their stabilization and dissemination, contribute to the construction of the sociotechnical imaginary of synthetic biology. Firstly, through a sociohistorical perspective, the goal is to identify the metaphors that have been central to the bioeconomic model, i.e., the political and economic framework in which synthetic biology is situated. This allows me to demonstrate that this field, since its emergence, relies on and perpetuates the machinic and informational metaphors of life. Subsequently, I conduct an analysis of media and advertising discourses related to the ecological promises of synthetic biology. In total, 134 articles from popular science magazines, economic information sources, and mainstream media were subjected to analysis. Additionally, the entire content of the websites of four synthetic biology companies was analyzed. This discursive analysis reveals that the machinic and informational representations of biology are at the core of the ecological promises of synthetic biology. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the desire to commodify biological processes manifests itself in two tendencies. On the one hand, living organisms are posited in terms of inert and malleable raw material. On the other hand, they are portrayed as active entities that can be put to work. The imaginary of synthetic biology thus involves a radicalization of the intent to integrate biological processes into industrial production. The ecological promises of this field appear to be subordinated to this objective. In the face of challenges posed by the ecological crisis, this research contributes to identifying and understanding the implications of technoscientific discourse in the collective imagination of contemporary societies. More specifically, it highlights the primacy of economic interests in the ecological promises emanating from a biotechnological field, namely synthetic biology.

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