Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

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

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Bioeconomies

Abstract

This chapter explores the ambivalences and tensions of parents’ engagement in health bioeconomies as forms of activating care , through the analysis of two case studies concerned with childbirth and first moments of parental life—private cord blood banking and mastitis during breastfeeding . The article focuses on parents’ contributions to the bioeconomy as providers of bodily tissues —stem cells , blood, breast milk or other samples of biological materials—to be preserved, employed in research or used to produce bio-objects by bioeconomic companies. Santoro and Romero-Bachiller draw on recent STS and feminist writing on care to argue that thinking through care allows for a more nuanced approach to the analysis of citizens’ and patients’ emergent forms of subjectivity and agency brought about by new biotechnologies.

Research on which this essay is based was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education through the 2013–2016 project led by S. García Dauder “Análisis de la producción y circulación de saberes expertos/legos en prácticas biomédicas” [Analysis of the production and circulation of expert/lay knowledges in biomedical practices, Ref: FFI2012-38912-C02-02], integrated in the coordinated research “Visiones y versiones de las tecnologías biomédicas” (VIVERTEC) (Visions and Versions of Biomedical Technologies, Ref. FFI2012-38912-C02-01), with Eulalia Pérez Sedeño as Main Researcher.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Akrich, M. (2010). From communities of practice to epistemic communities: Health mobilizations on the internet. Sociological Research Online, 15(2), 10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Akrich, M., Nunes, J., Paterson, F.‚ & Rabeharisoa, V. (Eds.). (2008). The dynamics of patient organizations in Europe, Paris: Presses de l’École des mines.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amir, L., Griffin, Cullinane, M., & Garland, S. M. (2016). Probiotics and mastitis: Evidence-based marketing? International Breastfeeding Review, 11, 19. Retrieved from https://internationalbreastfeedingjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13006-016-0078-5.

  • Arroyo, R., Martín, V., Maldonado, A., Jiménez, E., Fernández, L., & Rodríguez, J. M. (2010). Treatment of infectious mastitis during lactation: Antibiotics versus oral administration of lactobacilli isolated from Breast Milk. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 50(12), 1551–1558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barry, A. (2001). Political machines. London: The Athlon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beltrame, L. (2014). The bio-objectification of umbilical Cord Blood: Socio-economic and epistemic implications of biobanking. Tecnoscienza, 5(1), 67–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birch, K. (2016, August 10). Rethinking value in the Bio-economy: Finance, assetization, and the management of value. Science, Technology and Human Values. doi:10.1177/0162243916661633.

  • Brown, N., & Kraft, A. (2006). Blood ties: Banking the stem cell promise. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 18(3/4), 313–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, P., Zavestoski, S., McCormick, S., Mayer, B., Morello-Frosch, R., & Altman, R. (2004). Embodied health movements: new approaches to social movements in health. Sociology of Health & Illness, 26(1), 50–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, N., Machin, L., & McLeod, D. (2011). Immunitary bioeconomy: The economization of life in the international cord blood market. Social Science and Medicine, 72, 1115–1122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (2009). Frames of war. When is life grievable? London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callon, M., & Rabeharisoa, V. (2003). Research ‘in the wild’ and the shaping of new social identities. Technology in Society, 25, 193–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caron-Flinterman, F., Broerse, J. E. W., & Bunders, J. F. G. (2005). The experiential knowledge of patients: A new resource for biomedical research? Social Science & Medicine, 60(11), 2575–2584.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, P. H. (2004). Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited”: Where’s the power? In S. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader. Intellectual and political controversies. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. (2008). Life as surplus. Biotechnology and capitalism in the neoliberal era. Washington: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M., & Waldby, C. (2014). Clinical labor: Tissue donors and research subjects in the global bioeconomy. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • de la Bellacasa, M. P. (2011). Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things. History & Philosophy Of Science, 41(1), 85–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Del Savio, L., Buyx, A., & Prainsack, B. (2016). Opening the black box of participation in medicine and healthcare, Institute of Technology Assesment Manuscript ITA-16-01, Austrian Academy of Sciences. epub.oeaw.ac.at/ita/ita-manuscript/ita_16_01.pdf.

  • Epstein, S. (1996). Impure science. AIDS, activism and the politics of knowledge. Berkeley: California University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fannin, M. (2013). The hoarding economy of endometrial stem cell storage. Body and Society, 19(4), 32–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Federici, S. (2013). Revolución en punto cero. Trabajo doméstico, reproducción y luchas feministas. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernández, L. & Rodríguez, J. M. (2013). Mastitis. El lado oscuro de la lactancia. Madrid: Probisearch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, N., & Ward, K. (2006). Health identities: from expert patient to resisting consumer. Health, 10(4), 461–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gauvin, F. P., Abelson, J., Giacomini, M., Eyles, J., & Lavis, J. N. (2011). Moving cautiously: public involvement and the health technology assessment community. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 27(1), 43–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gluckman, E., Broxmeyer, H. E., & Auerbach, A. D. (1989). Hematopoietic reconstitution in a patient with Fanconi anemia by means of umbilical cord blood from HLA identical sibling. New England Journal of Medicine, 321, 1174–1178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, E. (2010). Migration, domestic work and affect. A decolonial approach on value and the feminization of labor. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. (1997). Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium. Femaleman©_Meets_Oncomouse™. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. (2010). When species meet: Staying with the trouble. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 281(1), 53–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, G. et al. (2011, March). Banking cord blood stem cells: attitude and knowledge of pregnant women in five European countries. Transfusion, 51, 578–586.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton, D. (2014). The commodification of patient opinion: The digital patient experience economy in the age of big data. Sociology of Health & Illness, 36(6), 856–869.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton, D., Pedersen, S., & Thomas, G. M. (2016). Parenting and digital media: From the early web to contemporary digital society. Sociology Compass, 10(8), 730–743.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maher, B. (2013, June 27). Father’s genetic quest pays off. Nature, 498, 418–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, P., Coveney, C., Kraft, A., Brown, N., & Bath, P. (2006). Commercial development of stem cell technology. Regenerative Medicine, 1(6), 801–807.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, P., Brown, N., & Turner, A. (2008). Capitalizing hope: The commercial development of umbilical cord blood stem cell banking. New Genetics and Society, 27(2), 127–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, A., Myers, N., & Viseu, A. (2015). The politics of care in technoscience. Social Studies of Science, 45(5), 625–641.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mol, A. (2008). The logic of care. Health and the problem of patient choice. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mol, A., Moser, I., & Pols, J. (Eds.). (2010). Care in practice. On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms. London: Transcript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, M. (2015). Unsettling care: Troubling transnational itineraries of care in feminist health practices. Social Studies of Science, 45(5), 717–737.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pérez Orozco, A. (2014). Subversión feminista de la economía. Apuntes para un debate sobre el conflicto capital-vida. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez Orozco, A., & López Gil, S. (2011). Desigualdades a flor de piel: cadenas globales de cuidados. Madrid: ONU mujeres.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petryna, A. (2004). Biological citizenship: The science and politics of Chernobyl-exposed populations. Osiris 2nd Series, 19, 250–265.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pols, J. (2010). Telecare. What patients care about? In A. Mol, I. Moser, & J. Pols (Eds.), Care in practice. On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms (pp. 171–194). Bielefeld: Transcript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prieto, C., & Guzman, S. P. (2013). Desigualdades laborales de género, disponibilidad temporal y normatividad social. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 141, 113–132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prior, L. (2003). Belief. Knowledge and Expertise: The Emergence of the Lay Expert in Medical Sociology, Sociology of Health and Illness, 25(3), 41–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabeharisoa, V., Moreira, T., & Akrich, M. (2014). Evidence-based activism: Patients’, users’ and activists’ groups in knowledge society. Biosocieties, 9(2), 111–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rajan, K. S. (2006). Biocapital: The constitution of postgenomic life. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. (2007). The politics of life itself. Biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N., & Novas, C. (2007). Biological citizenship. In A. Ong & S. J. Collier (Eds.), Global assemblages: Technology, politics and ethics as anthropological problems. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz Marcos, L. (2015). Cuando la memoria pasa por la piel. Escenarios del cuidado en la enfermedad de Alzheimer. Unpublished PhD thesis. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sánchez Criado, T., Rodríguez-Giralt, I., & Mencaroni, A. (2015). Care in the (critical) making. Open prototyping, or the radicalisation of independent-living politics. ALTER–European Journal of Disability Research, 10(1), 24–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Santoro, P. (2009). From (private?) waste to (public?) value. The regulation of private cord blood banking in Spain. Science Studies, 22(1), 3–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Santoro, P. (2011). Liminal biopolitics: Towards a Political Anthropology of the Umbilical Cord and the Placenta. Body and Society, 17(1), 73–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solís, C. V. (2009). Culturas del cuidado en transición. Espacios, sujetos e imaginarios en una sociedad de migración. Barcelona: University of Catalonia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, J. (2010). On recognition, caring and dementia. In A. Mol, I. Moser & J. Pols (Eds.), Care in practice. On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms‚ (pp. 27–56). Bielefeld: Transcript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tronto, J. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • UK Department of Health. (2001). The expert patient: A new approach to chronic disease management for the twenty-first century. London: Department of Health.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vermeulen, N., Tamminen, S., & Webster, A. (Eds.). (2012). Bio-objects. Life in the 21st century. Surrey: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldby, C. (2002). Stem cells, tissue cultures and the production of biovalue. Health, 6 (3): 305–323.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldby, C., & Mitchell, R. (2006). Tissue economies. Blood, organs, and cell lines in late capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wehling, P., Viehöver, W., & Koenen, S. (Eds.). (2014).The public shaping of medical research: patient associations, health movements and biomedicine. London: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Winance, M. (2010). Care and disability. Practices of experimenting, tinkering with, and arranging people and technical aid. In A. Mol, I. Moser and J. Pols (Eds.), Care in practice. On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms (pp. 93–118). Bielefeld: Transcript.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pablo Santoro & Carmen Romero-Bachiller

Authors
  1. Pablo Santoro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Carmen Romero-Bachiller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

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

    Vincenzo Pavone

  2. Kukupa Research Ltd, Pigeon Bay, Germany

    Joanna Goven

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Santoro, P., Romero-Bachiller, C. (2017). Thinking (Bioeconomies) Through Care: Patients’ Engagement with the Bioeconomies of Parenting. In: Pavone, V., Goven, J. (eds) Bioeconomies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55651-2_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55651-2_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55650-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55651-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation