Genomic stuff: Governing the (im)matter of life

Abstract

Emphasizing the context of what has often been referred to as “scarce natural resources”, in particular forests, meadows, and fishing stocks, Elinor Ostrom’s important work Governing the commons (1990) presents an institutional framework for discussing the development and use of collective action with respect to environmental problems. In this article we discuss extensions of Ostrom’s approach to genes and genomes and explore its limits and usefulness. With the new genetics, we suggest, the biological gaze has not only been turned inward to the management and mining of the human body, also the very notion of the “biological” has been destabilized. This shift and destabilization, we argue, which is the result of human refashioning and appropriation of “life itself”, raises important questions about the relevance and applicability of Ostrom’s institutional framework in the context of what we call “genomic stuff”, genomic material, data, and information.