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Unthinkable Biotechnology: the Standing-Reserves and Sacrificial Structures of Life Itself

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Unthinkable Biotechnology: the Standing-Reserves and Sacrificial Structures of Life Itself UNTHINKABLE BIOTECHNOLOGY: THE STANDING-RESERVES AND SACRIFICIAL STRUCTURES OF LIFE ITSELF by Scott Toguri McFarlane MA, University of British Columbia 1992 BA (Han), University of Toronto 1990 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Department of English © Scott Toguri McFarlane 2008 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2008 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL Name: Scott Toguri McFarlane Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title of Thesis: Unthinkable Biotechnology: The Standing-Reserves and Sacrificial Structures of Life Itself Examining Committee: Chair: Tom Grieve Dr. Roy Miki, Senior Supervisor Professor Emeritus, Department of English Dr. Jery Zaslove, Professor Emeritus Simon Fraser University Dr. David Chariandy, Assistant Professor Department of English, Simon Fraser University Dr. Helen Hok-Sze Leung, Assistant Professor Department of Women's Studies Simon Fraser University Internal-External Examiner Kim Sawchuk, Associate Professor Department of Communications Concordia University External Examiner Date Defended/Approved: October 31, 2008 11 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Declaration of Partial Copyright Licence The author, whose copyright is declared on the title page of this work, has granted to Simon Fraser University the right to lend this thesis, project or extended essay to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. The author has further granted permission to Simon Fraser University to keep or make a digital copy for use in its circulating collection (currently available to the public at the "Institutional Repository" link of the SFU Library website <www.lib.sfu.ca> at: <http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/112>) and, without changing the content, to translate the thesis/project or extended essays, if technically possible, to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation of the digital work. The author has further agreed that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by either the author or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without the author's written permission. Permission for public performance, or limited permission for private scholarly use, of any multimedia materials forming part of this work, may have been granted by the author. This information may be found on the separately catalogued multimedia material and in the signed Partial Copyright Licence. While licensing SFU to permit the above uses, the author retains copyright in the thesis, project or extended essays, including the right to change the work for subsequent purposes, including editing and publishing the work in whole or in part, and licensing other parties, as the author may desire. The original Partial Copyright Licence attesting to these terms, and signed by this author, may be found in the original bound copy of this work, retained in the Simon Fraser University Archive. Simon Fraser University Library Burnaby, BC, Canada Revised: Fall 2007 Abstract The emergence of biotechnology has resulted in intense debates about its promises and dangers. Advocates hail its promises, ranging from alleviating starvation through genetically engineered food to curing major diseases through gene therapy and pharmacological discoveries. Opponents decry its dangers, drawing attention to the inherent risks of genetic engineering, cloning, and the patenting of life forms. As these debates have continued, biotechnology has become a dominant mode of understanding the very life of living beings. There is, however, the need to examine the double-edged dynamics by which the discourse takes place. A theoretical framework informed by Heidegger, Foucault, and Agamben reveals that biotechnology is a structure of thought in which living-in-general is constructed as a metabolic "standing-reserve" (Heidegger). In this structure, biotechnological archives hold "life itself" as an ontologically unthinkable placeholder for a general mass of metabolic activity. The discourse of biotechnology constitutes its standing-reserves of the living-in-general by way of three modes that bring forth life for some, while sacrificing others. The first mode is eating, whereby the resources of the world were used to feed the bodies of Western Man, a prerequisite, according to Foucault, for the development of modern democracy. The second mode is incineration, exemplified by hot box experiments conducted by the US. Air III Force during World War Two, ranging from analysis of heating systems to fire bombing strategies. These experiments enacted the fiery incorporation of bodies in militarized systems that ultimately signified U.s. power. The third mode is feverish genomics, by which scientists store the genomic sequences of all living things in global bioinformatic archives. Intellectual Property Rights, whose prime example is the U.s. Supreme Court's approval of a patent on a genetically engineered life form (Diamond v. Chakrabarty 1980), defends all three modes as a right and expression of freedom by instituting the force of law. It is only by understanding biotechnology as a sacrificial structure that theoretical work on its privileging of U.s. interests can become more ethically charged. Keywords: Georgio Agamben; Biotechnology; Genetic Engineering; Intellectual Property Rights; Michel Foucault; Martin Heidegger Subject Terms: Biotechnology- Social aspects; Biotechnology - Moral and ethical aspects; Genetic Engineering- Social aspects; Genetic Engineering­ Moral and ethical aspects IV For David Kelvin McFarlane, in thanks for lessons about a life worth living v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I want to thank my partner, Monika Kin Gagnon and our daughter, Olivia. I have the thrilling privilege of living in a small, joyful home with two ferocious intellectuals who have been both loving and very patient with me. Monika, you have taught me so much about life, writing and caring-a life of careful writing. I hope that this thin acknowledgment expresses the soft blanket of my love and appreciation. I'd also like to thank my parents, Ed and Grace McFarlane, my sister, Jane, and my brother, David, for their support. My efforts to think through my relationship to David played a decisive role in the writing of my thesis, and shaped the form it eventually took. Many friends have played key roles in my intellectual formation but I want to thank five in particular who have helped me learn about biotechnology: artist Ron Benner for his crumpled books, fascinating research and gorgeous gardens; Jeannette Armstrong for early on helping me better understand the perils of the Human Genome Diversity Project; Marwan Hassan for walking me through any topic I broached; Fred Wah for his breath taking molecular poetics; and more recently, Rita Wong for her lexiconic biopoetry and conversations about the planet's watery life. vi Thanks to Janine Marchessault for sharing her brilliance, encouragement, a frenzied belief in the future and especially for tremendous help with an early draft. Friends whose conversations have intoxicated my thoughts on biotech include Mary Daniel, Stan Douglas, Jim Drobnick, Jennifer Fisher, the late Charles Gagnon, Hiromi Goto, Arthur Kroker, Larissa Lai, Sourayan Ashok Mathur, Mookerjea, Erin Moure, the late Nancy Shaw, Gerry Shikatani, Leila Sujir, Marnie Thorp, Mina Totino, Henry Tsang and especially Glen Lowry, for conversations about literature, cultural theory, music, art and family - and for regularly bringing me to tears of laughter. Last but not least, I want to thank my examining committee. I'd like to thank Prof. Kim Sawchuk for the wonderful opportunity to get feedback from a well-known scholar who has been working in the area of biomedical visual culture, while helping to create a critical discourse concerned with "biotourism" - all well before many of us were even aware of the coming import of these topics. Thanks as well to Prof Helen Hok-Sze Leung for her commitment to the practice of writing, and for teaching me of several contemporary cats changing the very feel of queer archives. I look forward to future conversations. I would especially like to thank my immediate committee. Prof. David Chariandry, thanks for writing an essay that became the basis of about twenty undergraduate essays on Dionne Brand's What We All Long For, and for writing a fabulous novel that includes the following lines: "I've forgotten how the monsters strike. Sometimes, you won't even hear the approach." Thanks to Prof. vii Jery Zaslove for his precise and patient intellect over years of advice, warm support, and more recently for the provocation of his labyrinthine photo exhibition. And thanks especially to Prof. Roy Miki, for his generous wit and the magical expanse of his incessantly social intellect; for welcoming me into his home over the years to meet his family, including his wife, Slavia Miki, who has in her way changed the way I think; but most of all, 1'd like to thank Roy for showing me how I could - and need to, for my own sake- become a better writer in concrete ways that have inspired me to take on the challenge. As an aspiring academic, this is a pedagogical lesson I
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