Paper short abstract:

The recent turn to post-genomic science examines health and disease by exploring how environments expand into bodies. Taking its cues from work with stem cell researchers, this paper suggests that in the process the microenvironment itself has been turned into a potent tool of biological control.

Paper long abstract:

According to post-genomic science, stem cells inhabit particular bodily niches. It is in these habitats in the body, shared with other human and non-human cells, that stem cells can grow and reproduce. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Scottish scientists, this paper explores how laboratory researchers use the niche, a particular notion of embodied ecologies, to intervene in biological matter. Specifically focused on the laboratory practice of reprogramming of cells, I explore how the niche is used as powerful tool in the post-genomic control of biology. My research engages recent anthropological scholarship, which demonstrates the co-production of the biological and the social in a context where environments expand into bodies. While the effects of embodied ecologies on individual responsibility and societal accountability have been demonstrated, my work suggests that the niche allows scientists to dramatically reshape cellular constitution and form by turning microenvironments themselves into tools. I argue that this re-tooling of the niche not only changes how scientists perceive their role in relation to the biology they study, it also produces growing concerns and uncertainties about the resilience of the body.