Taxonomy, biodiversity and their publics in twenty-first-century DNA barcoding

Ellis, Rebecca and Waterton, Claire and Wynne, Brian (2010) Taxonomy, biodiversity and their publics in twenty-first-century DNA barcoding. Public Understanding of Science, 19 (4). pp. 497-512. ISSN 1361-6609

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Abstract

We examine the crafting of publics in the global Barcoding of Life Initiative (BOLI)—seen as crucial for re invigorating, and democratizing, early-twentyfirst- century taxonomic sciences and hence for actually achieving biodiversity protection. Our approach to the issue of publics differs from that of conventional public understanding of or engagement with science work. Combining science and technology studies with critical political theory allows us to examine the discursive and material formation of publics occurring within the science of DNA barcoding. Co-productionist theory suggests BOLI to be actively crafting its prospective publics imaginatively, as an integral part of its selfcomposition as public science. Drawing on the work of Laclau’s On Populist Reason, we examine how such normatively weighted abstract publics are necessarily chronically incomplete, with an unavoidable tension between the universal and the particular.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Public Understanding of Science
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/libraryofcongress/g1
Subjects:
?? GEOGRAPHYCOMMUNICATIONG GEOGRAPHY (GENERAL) ??
ID Code:
33742
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
25 Jun 2010 13:28
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
19 Sep 2023 00:28