Trees and seas of information: Alien kinship and the biopolitics of gene transfer in marine biology and biotechnology

Abstract

Examining discussions of "lateral gene transfer" in marine biology and biotechnology, I maintain that "natural" bonds between genealogy and classification in biology may be dissolving. I argue that marine microbial biology is good to think about with the rise of new kinships and biopolitics organized less around practices of "sex" than politics of "transfer." I draw on fieldwork among academic and industry marine biologists to explore implications of rhizomatic, informatic, watery articulations of "bare life." [biopolitics, kinship, gene transfer, anthropology of science, maritime anthropology, biotechnology]

The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography

“…A close look at human skins, guts, and genomes reveals that human beings are a consortium of sorts, a medley of microbial becomings (Haraway 2008:31). By the late 20th century, biologists were beginning to find that viruses and other microbes transfer genes across species lines as well as higher level taxonomic categories like families or even phyla—spreading genetic material laterally among living creatures, rather than vertically down generations (Helmreich 2003). Evolutionary theorists began to rethink their mappings of interspecies relationships, challenging prevailing Darwinian orthodoxies about linear descent (Margulis and Sagan 2002; see also Hird 2009).…”

Robot life: simulation and participation in the study of evolution and social behavior

“…Among other recent changes pointed to as evidence of a challenge to the dominance of the neo-Darwinian synthesis are metagenomics and the reorganization of the tree of life, epigenetics, lateral gene transfer, new understandings of metabolism, co-evolution, symbiosis, mutualism and parasitism. All these things may well challenge many of the established aspects of evolutionary theory-and they demand exploration, experimentation and the observation of living things (Dupré and Malley 2009;Gilbert et al 2012;Gilbert and Epel 2009;Helmreich 2003;Landecker 2011;Sapp 2009;Wimsatt and Griesemer 2007).…”

Toward an Anthropology of Computer-Mediated, Algorithmic Forms of Sociality

“…Compare this mash-up of styles and its conditions of possibility and implications with new developments in the field of bioinformatics, which allow "lateral translations" of genetic material between, and "horizontal leaps across," different branches of these trees (Mackenzie 2003:321). These developments, which are enabled to a large extent by the algorithmic processing of genetic material as digital information, are creating new kinship and biopolitical imaginaries, which have hitherto been dominated by the model of the tree structure naturalized and given a scientific status by Darwin in the nineteenth century (see also Helmreich 2003). lion, making it the third-largest sale in U.S. history at that time.…”

“…In this article, I contribute to the growing anthropological literature that has been concerned with theorizing the role played by computerized algorithms in various ethnographic sites (Downey 1998;Helmreich 1998;Kockelman 2011;Suchman 2007;Zaloom 2006). I discuss the role played by computerized algorithms in the simulation and mixing of styles as a way to engage with, problematize, and reconfigure a long and major tradition in cultural anthropology, which has appropriated the notion of artistic style as part of its theorization of the notion of culture.…”