Vincenzo Pavone, CSIC; Mauro Turrini, CSIC; Ayo Wahlberg, University of Copenhagen; Catherine Bourgain, French Institute of Health and Medical Research; Violeta Argudo, Universidad de Barcelona (UB);
DNA temporality and materiality are surprising. DNA can speak of our ancestors; predict how we might develop in the future and provide information about our environment. As our understanding of human DNA switches from the code of life to a complex ecosystem in which intra-genetics interactions and epigenetics play a crucial role, the promises of genetics have been increasingly surrounded by fierce clinical, cultural, and political controversies. This panel addresses the temporal and material relationship between genomics, health, and time by focusing on predisposition to diseases, selection of future life forms, the construction of identities and the production of uncertainties. We wish to elicit and put in dialogue research analyzing different areas of genetic testing in order to explore the anticipation of the future and highlight the global chains that operate through material and symbolic processes. We call for contributions a) mapping the actors active in genetic testing and understand their motivations, expectations, and funding strategies b) analyzing the public discourse over genetics, prevention, and prediction in market services, in clinical settings, and in reproductive practices, c) analyzing the role of professionals, health care agencies, private clinics, and laboratories in framing, evaluating and classifying genetic variants to be studied, d) exploring how scientific notions of genetic prediction and prevention are reconfiguring individual and collective identities and e) examining how families with known predispositions are increasingly developing a 'genetic sensibility' through the ways in which they relate to, use and communicate knowledge about predisposition.
