Constructing populations in biobanking

TY - JOUR

T1 - Constructing populations in biobanking

AU - Tupasela, Aaro

AU - Snell, Karoliina

AU - Cañada, Jose a.

N1 - Life Sciences, Society and Policy201511:5 DOI: 10.1186/s40504-015-0024-0

PY - 2015/12/1

Y1 - 2015/12/1

N2 - This article poses the question of whether biobanking practices and standards are giving rise to the construction of populations from which various biobanking initiatives increasingly draw on for legitimacy? We argue that although recent biobanking policies encourage various forms of engagement with publics to ensure legitimacy, different biobanks conceptualize their engagement strategies very differently. We suggest that biobanks undertake a broad range of different strategies with regard to engagement. We argue that these different approaches to engagement strategies are contributing to the construction of populations, whereby specific nationalities, communities, societies, patient groups and political systems become imbued or bio-objectified with particular characteristics, such as compliant, distant, positive, commercialized or authoritarian. This bio-objectification process is problematic in relation to policy aspirations ascribed to biobanking engagement since it gives rise to reified notions of different populations.

AB - This article poses the question of whether biobanking practices and standards are giving rise to the construction of populations from which various biobanking initiatives increasingly draw on for legitimacy? We argue that although recent biobanking policies encourage various forms of engagement with publics to ensure legitimacy, different biobanks conceptualize their engagement strategies very differently. We suggest that biobanks undertake a broad range of different strategies with regard to engagement. We argue that these different approaches to engagement strategies are contributing to the construction of populations, whereby specific nationalities, communities, societies, patient groups and political systems become imbued or bio-objectified with particular characteristics, such as compliant, distant, positive, commercialized or authoritarian. This bio-objectification process is problematic in relation to policy aspirations ascribed to biobanking engagement since it gives rise to reified notions of different populations.

KW - Biobanking,Bio-objects,Engagement,Governance,Popul

KW - bio-objects

KW - biobanking

KW - engagement

KW - governance

KW - populations

U2 - 10.1186/s40504-015-0024-0

DO - 10.1186/s40504-015-0024-0

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 26194269

SN - 2195-7819

VL - 11

JO - Life Sciences, Society and Policy

JF - Life Sciences, Society and Policy

IS - 5

ER -