title: Constructing populations in biobanking.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, Øster Farimagsgade 5, PO Box 2099, 1014, Copenhagen, Denmark, aatu@sund.ku.dk.
authors.forename: Aaro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tupasela
authors.forename: Karoliina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Snell
authors.forename: Jose A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Cañada
mesh_terms: D018070:Biological Specimen Banks / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D003256:Community Participation; D003718:Denmark; D005062:European Union; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000941:ethics*; D011050:Policy Making; D011639:Public Opinion; D011640:Public Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D011786:Quality Control; D012941:Social Responsibility