Domesticating and democratizing science: A geography of do-it-yourself biology
Résumé
By turning private homes and community spaces into sites where biological experimentation can be carried out, do-
it-
yourself biology promises a democratization of science. This democratization is based upon material processes:
efforts to increase the affordability, accessibility and mutability of scientific equipment can be observed. In particular,
do- it-yourself biology relies on ‘creative workarounds’ around objects (to transform and combine them in novel ways)
and institutions (to circumvent established university–industry business linkages).
I call this process ‘amaterialization’: equipment is opened up to amateurs and redistributed across social worlds;
technically transformed and redesigned; and alongside material artefacts, we see a proliferation and an increasing
circulation of non-material entities (texts, information, videos, etc.).
By tinkering with objects and sharing knowledge via various communicative devices – websites, blogs, wikis, forums,
videos –
do-it-yourself biologists aim to create a new, collective and open economy of scientific equipment and render
biology more accessible to citizens. A distinct form of individuality is constituted by providing people with access,
transforming them into active makers of science, making their bodies/ailments more knowable and demonstrating that
one can do it oneself. Do-
it-yourself biology thus offers a site for exploring the ethics, boundaries and new forms of
sociability for biology.