Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses advantages and pitfalls of situating the experimental subject in pharmaceutical research with reference to a “logic of care”.

Paper long abstract:

Experimental subjects in clinical pharmaceutical research seem to be constantly meandering between mere (bio-)"thing-ness", as mediators in an experimental system, and various (bio-)subjectivities e.g. the potential consumer, the team member in creating an innovative study design and the informed, responsible patient. At the same time their involvement at every stage of the trial process can be read as an involvement in a vast array of care practices, like investing in a implicit "gift-relationship" with a collective of patients or being cared for by medical staff to an extent that regular health insurance is rather unlikely to pay for.

With reference to a "logic of care" (Mol 2008) the paper discusses the possibility of developing an integrative analytical perspective on the experimental subject that does not play off concepts of subject and object in clinical research against each other. It critically explores advantages and pitfalls of an approach that situates research subjects in an ongoing, reciprocal process of care. Furthermore, the paper underlines that care practices can only be sufficiently analysed if the complex interweaving of a logic of care with logic(s) of global biocapitalism is taken into account.