title: Somatic individuality in context, a comparative case study.
abstract: Scholars have challenged the totalizing nature of the "geneticization thesis," arguing that its brushstrokes are too broad to capture the complicated nature of the new genetics. One such challenge has come from Nikolas Rose's argument that genetic medicine is governed by a new biopolitics in which patients understand themselves as "somatic individuals" who treat their bodies as an "ethical substance" to be worked on in order to secure a healthier future. I argue that Rose's argument, while compelling, paints the new genetics in equally broad brushstrokes and that in order for a concept like somatic individuality to become useful, we must study its manifestation across different communities of at-risk individuals. I undertake such a study by analyzing discourse use in two online biosocial communities, showing how the decision-making situations specific to each affect representations of somatic individuality, often creating opportunities for the rhetorical repurposing of older discourses of genetic determinism.
authors.affiliation: Virginia Tech, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pender
mesh_terms: D005823:Genetics / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D011057:Politics
keywords: biopolitics; geneticization; new genetics; somatic individuality