Abstract
The fraught and contested terrain of stem cell research and therapies is an undulating landscape of utopias and dystopias. Extending the tropic notion of ‘biocrossing’ (Bharadwaj 2008), the chapter articulates the faint traces of utopic and dystopic logics underscoring these ‘crossings’ and the evolving biography of a contested terrain this (re)scripts. The chapter engages with ethnographic immersion into the lives of physicians, researchers, policymakers, and patients to conceptualize evolving scenarios that remain divergent and yet the source of emergent but shifting utopias and dystopias that often get experienced as a heterotopia.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bharadwaj, Aditya. 2008. Biosociality and Biocrossings: Encounters with Assisted Conception and Embroyonic Stem Cell in India. In Biosocialities, Genetics and the Social Sciences: Making Biologies and Identities, ed. Sahra Gibbon and Carlos Novas, 98–116. London; New York: Routledge.
———. 2012. Enculturating Cells: The Anthropology, Substance, and Science of Stem Cells. Annual Review of Anthropology 41 (1): 303–317.
———. 2013. Subaltern Biology? Local Biologies, Indian Odysseys and the Pursuit of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Therapies. Medical Anthropology 32 (4): 359–373.
———. 2015. Badnam Science? The Spectre of the ‘Bad’ Name and the Politics of Stem Cell Science in India. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal. https://samaj.revues.org/3999. Accessed 31 August 2016.
Central Drugs Standard Control Organization. 2013. Guidance Document for Regulatory Approvals of Stem Cell and Cell Based Products (SCCPs)/SPS/2013-001. New Delhi: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. http://www.cdsco.nic.in/writereaddata/DRAFT%20GUIDANCE%20STEM%20CELLS-FINAL.pdf. Accessed 31 August 2016.
Foucault, Michel. 1967. “Of Other Spaces,” Trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16 (1): 22–27.
Franklin, Sarah. 2006. Embryonic Economies: The Double Reproductive Value of Stem Cells. BioSocieties 1 (01): 71–90.
———. 2007. Stem Cells R Us: Emergent Life Forms and the Global Biological. In Global Assemblages, ed. Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier, 59–78. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470696569.ch4/summary. Accessed 31 July 2014.
———. 2013. Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=469257. Accessed 11 February 2016.
Hetherington, Kevin. 1997. The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Ordering. London: Psychology Press.
Indian Council for Medical Research. 2007. Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Therapy. Guideline Document. New Delhi: Department of Biotechnology and Indian Council of Medical Research. http://icmr.nic.in/stem_cell/stem_cell_guidelines_2007.pdf. Accessed 20 April 2017.
———. 2013. National Guidelines for Stem Cell Research. Guideline Document. New Delhi: Department of Health Research and Department of Biotechnology. https://www.ncbs.res.in/sites/default/files/policies/NGSCR%202013.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2017.
Jayaraman, K.S. 2014. Unproven Stem Cell Therapy Banned. Nature India. http://www.natureasia.com/en/nindia/article/10.1038/nindia.2014.39. Accessed 18 April 2017.
Rajagopal, Divya, and Rohini Mohan. 2015. India’s Disproportionately Tiny Health Budget: A National Security Concern? The Economic Times, October 31. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/indias-disproportionately-tiny-health-budget-a-national-security-concern/articleshow/49603121.cms. Accessed 18 April 2017.
Sleeboom-Faulkner, Margaret, and Prasanna Kumar Patra. 2009. The Bioethical Vacuum: National Policies on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in India and China. Journal of International Biotechnology Law 5 (6): 221–234.
Street, Alice, and Simon Coleman. 2012. Introduction: Real and Imagined Spaces. Space and Culture 15 (1): 4–17.
Thompson, Charis. 2013. Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Tiwari, Shashank S., and Sujatha Raman. 2014. Governing Stem Cell Therapy in India: Regulatory Vacuum or Jurisdictional Ambiguity? New Genetics and Society 33 (4): 413–433.
Winner, Langdon. 1980. Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedalus 109 (1): 121–136.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Appleton, N.S., Bharadwaj, A. (2018). Biocrossing Heterotopia: Revisiting Contemporary Stem Cell Research and Therapy in India. In: Bharadwaj, A. (eds) Global Perspectives on Stem Cell Technologies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63787-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63787-7_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63786-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63787-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)