Abstract
Recent developments in genetics have provoked considerable controversy and involve various kinds of ambivalence about contemporary biomedicine and its social context. Rather than arguing that lay and professional ambivalence are problems to be overcome, this paper suggests that ambivalence may bring reflexivity and protect against exploitation. This paper explores some of the different kinds of ambivalence about genetics expressed in 12 focus groups by a range of publics and professionals. Within the professional groups participating in the study, we found ambivalence was seldom foregrounded in favour of a discourse of risk management and education of the public. When ambivalence was expressed, it seemed to be circumscribed and solved by rational action although we did identify moments of reflexivity and personal ambivalence. The lay groups expressed ambivalence and concern about some of the same issues as the professional groups and once again ambivalence often remained muted. However, it was less easily countered by proposed regulatory or commercial solutions. Personal experience sometimes fostered critical reflection. Moral ambivalence was evident, sometimes based on religious values. Our analysis suggests that neither the stories of ambivalence as a force for democratization or professional domination ring true. The professionals and lay people in our study were struggling to manage expertise, risk and morality, as they examined and reflected upon the social and ethical aspects of the new genetics. Ambivalence then should be actively fostered, extending Bauman's recourse to individual conscience towards dialogue and collective responses.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Anne Kerr and Sarah Cunningham-Burley (Principal Investigators), Richard Tutton (Research Fellow). Transformations in Genetic Subjecthood ESRC Innovative Health Technologies Programme 2002-4 L218252059.
Atlas.ti is a qualitative data package for the analysis of large bodies of text through coding and networking of codes, memos and quotations.
References
Bauman Z (1991). Modernity and Ambivalence. Polity Press: Cambridge.
Bauman Z (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Blackwell: Oxford.
Bauman Z (1997). Postmodernity and its Discontents. Polity Press: Cambridge.
Beck U (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Sage: New Delhi.
Collins HM, Evans R (2002). The third wave of science studies: studies of expertise and experience. Social Studies of Science 32: 235–296.
Dunkerley D, Glasner P (1998). Empowering the public? Citizens juries and the new genetic technologies. Critical Public Health 8: 181–192.
Epstein S (1996). Impure Science. AIDS, Activism and the Politics of Knowledge. University of California Press: Berkeley.
Farsides B, Williams C, Alderson P (2004). Aiming towards ‘moral equilibrium’: health care professionals’ views on working within the morally contested field of antenatal screening. Journal of Medical Ethics 30: 505–509.
Giddens A (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy. Polity Press: Cambridge.
Glasner P, Rothman H (1999). Does familiarity breed concern? Bench scientists and the human genome project. Science and Public Policy 16: 233–240.
Glasner P, Rothman H (2001). New genetics, new ethics? Globalisation and its discontents health. Risk and Society 3: 245–260.
Goven J (2003). Deploying the consensus conference in New Zealand: democracy and deproblematization. Public Understanding of Science 12: 423–440.
Kerr A, Cunningham-Burley S, Amos A (1997). The New Genetics: Professionals’Discursive. Boundaries. Sociological Review 45: 297–303.
Kerr A, Cunningham-Burley S, Tutton R (forthcoming). Shifting subject positions: experts and lay people in public dialogue. Social Studies of Science.
Nicholas B (2001). Exploring a moral landscape: genetic science and ethics. Hypatia 16: 45–63.
Merton R, Barber E (1963). Sociological ambivalence. In: Tiryakian EA (ed). Sociological Theory, Values and Sociological Change: Essays in Honor of Piritim A. Sorokin. The Free Press: New York. pp 91–120 reprinted in Merton, R. (1976) Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays. The Free Press, 1976).
Power M (1999). The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University.
Prior L (2003). Belief, knowledge and expertise: the emergence of the lay expert in medical sociology. Sociology of Health and Illness 25 (Silver Anniversary Issue): 41–57.
Roberts C, Franklin S (2004). Experiencing new forms of genetic choice: findings from an ethnographic study of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Human Fertility 7 (4): 285–293.
Scully JL, Rippberger C, Rehmann-Sutter C (2004). Non-professionals’ evaluations of gene therapy ethics’. Social Science and Medicine 58: 1415–1425.
Wynne B (1996). May the sheep safely graze? A reflexive view of the expert-lay knowledge divide. In: Lash S, Szerszynski B and Wynne B (eds.) Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology. Sage: London. pp. 44–83.
Wynne B (2002). Risk and environment as legitimatory discourses of technology: reflexivity inside out? Current Sociology 50: 459–477.
Yearley S (2000). Making Systematic Sense of Public Discontents with Expert Knowledge: Two Analytical Approaches and a Case Study. Public Understanding of Science 9 (2): 105–122.
Zeiler K (2004). Reproductive autonomous choice – A cherished illusion? Reproductive autonomy examined in the context of reimplantation genetic diagnosis. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 7: 175–183.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kerr, A., Cunningham-Burley, S. & Tutton, R. Exploring Ambivalence about Genetic Research and its Social Context. Soc Theory Health 5, 53–69 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700085
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700085