Les matériaux vivants entre les mains hackers

Abstract

In the wake of the global bio-hacker endeavour to appropriate biotechnologies for one’s own ends, this article looks into the relation of bio-hackers to living materials. My aim is to contribute to the discussion on living materials by perusing their technical existence as they appear in the form of biotechnological life (BL). At the crossroads of science studies and critical theory, the article builds on a discourse analysis of interviews conducted with bio-hackers, mostly Canadian. The analysis highlights the mode of existence of BL according to three main figures: the bio-hacker imaginary of a BL, conceived as the common bio-infrastructure of bio-hacking, synthetic biology, and bioeconomy; the challenge that biological normative purposes offer for the materialization of BL; and the creation of an unequal, often circumstantial, distinction between life forms that participates in the social legitimation of the mode of existence of BL.

Keywords

• synthetic biology
• bio-hacking
• DIYbio
• genetic engineering
• epistemology