Paper short abstract:

This article explores the structure and political use of “island thinking” in the literature about gene drive technologies in conservation. We aim to open up a domain of thinking around the possibility of demarcation in our world – of our political, normative decisions, and of our reality.

Paper long abstract:

This article explores the structure and political use of “island thinking” in the scientific and policy literature about the use of gene drive technologies in conservation. In the first part of the article, we explore the narrative of contained gene drive use on islands and discuss how it juggles notions of localness and localization of gene drives and their (test) releases. Our aim here is to question the possibility and narrative of containing the spread of gene drives technologically or geographically. The second part of the article is devoted to reflection on nonlocal concerns about gene drives and the possibility of local gene drive decisions. We point to a tension between the attempt to create a local gene drive that allows for local decision-making and their nonlocalizability due to the global context in which these technologies and decisions are being made. Our second, more conceptual aim is therefore to open up a domain of thinking around the possibility of demarcation in our world – of our political, normative decisions, and of our reality. To these ends, we provide an analysis of arguments, frames, and discourse in the gene drive literature.