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Reordering Life: Knowledge and Control in the Genomics Revolution
How the regimes governing biological research changed during the genomics revolution, focusing on the Human Genome Project.
The rise of genomics engendered intense struggle over the control of knowledge. In Reordering Life, Stephen Hilgartner examines the “genomics revolution” and develops a novel approach to studying the dynamics of change in knowledge and control. Hilgartner focuses on the Human Genome Project (HGP)—the symbolic and scientific centerpiece of the emerging field—showing how problems of governance arose in concert with new knowledge and technology. Using a theoretical framework that analyzes “knowledge control regimes,” Hilgartner investigates change in how control was secured, contested, allocated, resisted, justified, and reshaped as biological knowledge was transformed. Beyond illuminating genomics, Reordering Life sheds new light on broader issues about secrecy and openness in science, data access and ownership, and the politics of research communities.
Drawing on real-time interviews and observations made during the HGP, Reordering Life describes the sociotechnical challenges and contentious issues that the genomics community faced throughout the project. Hilgartner analyzes how laboratories control access to data, biomaterials, plans, preliminary results, and rumors; compares conflicting visions of how to impose coordinating mechanisms; examines the repeated destabilization and restabilization of the regimes governing genome databases; and examines the fierce competition between the publicly funded HGP and the private company Celera Genomics. The result is at once a path-breaking study of a self-consciously revolutionary science, and a provocative analysis of how knowledge and control are reconfigured during transformative scientific change.
The rise of genomics engendered intense struggle over the control of knowledge. In Reordering Life, Stephen Hilgartner examines the “genomics revolution” and develops a novel approach to studying the dynamics of change in knowledge and control. Hilgartner focuses on the Human Genome Project (HGP)—the symbolic and scientific centerpiece of the emerging field—showing how problems of governance arose in concert with new knowledge and technology. Using a theoretical framework that analyzes “knowledge control regimes,” Hilgartner investigates change in how control was secured, contested, allocated, resisted, justified, and reshaped as biological knowledge was transformed. Beyond illuminating genomics, Reordering Life sheds new light on broader issues about secrecy and openness in science, data access and ownership, and the politics of research communities.
Drawing on real-time interviews and observations made during the HGP, Reordering Life describes the sociotechnical challenges and contentious issues that the genomics community faced throughout the project. Hilgartner analyzes how laboratories control access to data, biomaterials, plans, preliminary results, and rumors; compares conflicting visions of how to impose coordinating mechanisms; examines the repeated destabilization and restabilization of the regimes governing genome databases; and examines the fierce competition between the publicly funded HGP and the private company Celera Genomics. The result is at once a path-breaking study of a self-consciously revolutionary science, and a provocative analysis of how knowledge and control are reconfigured during transformative scientific change.
- GenresScience
368 pages, Hardcover
Published May 19, 2017
14 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Hilgartner
6 books2 followersStephen Hilgartner is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 23, 2021
The relationship between knowledge control regimes and scientific culture is quite interesting. Took me ages, though.
August 9, 2025
Throughout the book I couldn't stop thinking about how the ever-changing world of AI, especially around LLMs, the same kinds topics come to life: regulation and funding in an emerging field, accessing and sharing data, intellectual property ("Who owns the genome?", "Who do we credit for this AI-generated art?"), auditing and accountability, and "vanguard visions," (which are not to be confused with Jasanoff and Kim's conception of sociotechnical imageries) to name a few.
I think this connection is super interesting, and I hope that we can take some of the lessons that Hilgartner pulls from his ethnographic work into practice around AI today; especially treating the vanguards (i.e. those making promises of cured disease and human flourishing because of the adoption of AI) that champion scientific revolutions and a as the political actors that they are.
I also found Hilgartner's writing to be super clear.
I think this connection is super interesting, and I hope that we can take some of the lessons that Hilgartner pulls from his ethnographic work into practice around AI today; especially treating the vanguards (i.e. those making promises of cured disease and human flourishing because of the adoption of AI) that champion scientific revolutions and a as the political actors that they are.
I also found Hilgartner's writing to be super clear.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews