Bioeconomies

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiii

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2. Introduction

   • Vincenzo Pavone, Joanna Goven

   Pages 1-22

3. Promissory and Performative: Remaking Institutions for the Bioeconomy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

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   2. The “Entrepreneurial State” and the Leveraging of Life in the Field of Regenerative Medicine

      • John Gardner, Andrew Webster, James Mittra

      Pages 25-47

   3. Technologies of Governance: Science, State and Citizen in Visions of the Bioeconomy

      • Tess Doezema, J. Benjamin Hurlbut

      Pages 49-71

   4. “Having a Structuring Effect on Europe”: The Innovative Medicines Initiative and the Construction of the European Health Bioeconomy

      • Luca Marelli, Giuseppe Testa

      Pages 73-101

4. Making Value and Remaking Research in the Bioeconomies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 103-103

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   2. The Underworlds Project and the “Collective Microbiome”: Mining Biovalue from Sewage

      • Luísa Reis-Castro

      Pages 105-127

   3. Bio-Identification, Value Creation and the Reproductive Bioeconomy: Insights from the Reprogenetics Sector in Spain

      • Vincenzo Pavone

      Pages 129-159

   4. Making Value(s) Through Social Contracts for Biomedical Population Research

      • Erik Aarden

      Pages 161-184

5. Bioeconomies as Sites of Power and Struggle

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 185-185

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   2. Data-Sharing Politics and the Logics of Competition in Biobanking

      • Aaro Tupasela

      Pages 187-206

   3. Reproducing the Border: Kinship Legalities in the Bioeconomy

      • Sonja van Wichelen

      Pages 207-226

   4. Embedded Promissory Futures: The Rise of Networked Agribusiness in Argentina’s Bioeconomy

      • Pierre Delvenne

      Pages 227-249

6. Capitalizing on Altruism: Donation, Care, and Unequal Relations in Global Bioeconomies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 251-251

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   2. Egg Donation in the Making: Gender, Selection and (In)Visibilities in the Spanish Bioeconomy of Reproduction

      • Sara Lafuente Funes

      Pages 253-277

   3. Thinking (Bioeconomies) Through Care: Patients’ Engagement with the Bioeconomies of Parenting

      • Pablo Santoro, Carmen Romero-Bachiller

      Pages 279-302

   4. Who Is My Donor? A New Bioeconomy of Blood and Its Changing Ontology

      • Emma King

      Pages 303-323

   5. Conclusion

      • Vincenzo Pavone, Joanna Goven

      Pages 325-341

7. Back Matter

   Pages 343-350

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This book explores the promissory discourses and practices associated with the bioeconomy, focusing especially on the transformation of institutions; the creation, appropriation, and distribution of value; the struggle over resources, power, and meaning; and the role of altruism, kinship, and care practices. Governments and science enthusiasts worldwide are embracing the bioeconomy, championing it as the key to health, wealth, and sustainability, while citing it as justification to transform research and regulatory institutions, health and agricultural practices, ethics of privacy and ownership, and conceptions of self and kin. Drawing together studies from Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Europe, this volume encompasses subjects as diverse as regenerative medicine, population health research, agricultural finance, biobanking, assisted reproduction, immigration, breastfeeding, self-help groups, GM fish, and mining sewage.

• Science and Technology Studies
• Bioeconomies
• Biotechnology
• Sociology of science and innovation
• Innovation economics
• Science and innovation policy
• Political economy
• Public policy
• Medical sociology
• Sociology of health and illness
• Synthetic biology

• Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain

  Vincenzo Pavone

• Kukupa Research Ltd, Pigeon Bay, Germany

  Joanna Goven

Vincenzo Pavone is Tenured Researcher at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). He leads a research group on the global bioeconomy studying the relationship between science, technology and neoliberal politics. He has been PI of several national and international research projects on reproductive and regenerative medicine, transgenics and surveillance-oriented security technologies.


Joanna Goven is Director of Kukupa Research, which she founded after many years as an academic. In recent years she has focused on the political economy of science and on facilitating transdisciplinary research. She has published in the areas of gender politics, public engagement with science, transdisciplinarity, and the bioeconomy.

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