ABSTRACT
This book has presented a series of cases with the aim of demonstrating that human genomics is both mediated and embodied through multiple sites of media circulation. I have used incorporation as a figure that signals the intersection of mediation and embodiment in the making of genomics. I have signalled the importance of this double aspect of genomics to try to examine a middle-ground. This ground is between work on what genomics signifies in general terms (Van Dijck, 1998; Nelkin and Lindee, 1995; Anker and Nelkin, 2004; Roof, 2007), on the one hand, and how it is experienced by patient groups and their families on the other (Featherstone et al., 2006). Examining this middle-ground has included a tracing of the contours of genomics as an addressable object. This tracing has shown how genomics is taken up in everyday life, and how its address extends to general audiences, at the same time as it has specific significance for particular groups. The book has traced some of the institutions, texts, contexts and audiences of mediated genomics and used the figure of incorporation to move beyond the proposition of geneticisation, into a more particular account of how genomics is made meaningful. In the current moment the place of genomics is shifting from domains of established expertise such as the life sciences and biotechnology institutes, to indefinite media publics through multiple domains. In this context the question of geneticisation (or not) has less salience than it once did. Genomics has a life beyond the control of specific institutions, its circulation as and through media cultures makes it an addressable object with uncertain provenance. In this context it is important to examine the contours of its circulation and to trace the sites in which is more – or less – meaningful.
