Article,
The 'geneticisation' of heart disease: a network analysis of the production of new genetic knowledge
Social Science & Medicine, 60 (12): 2673-2683 (2005/6)
Abstract
Genetic science is making ever-expanding claims about the (mal)functioning
of the body. The 'geneticisation' of health and medicine is extending
from rare single gene conditions to more common multi-factorial disease,
such as heart disease. The dominant behavioural and socio-spatial
explanations of heart disease are now being challenged by genetic
claims of deterministic biological causes. This paper builds an account
of the transformation of heart disease in the new genetics era, by
applying actor network theory (ANT) to the production of genetic
knowledge of one aspect of heart disease--hypertension--within a
medical genetics laboratory in Glasgow, Scotland. Using this approach,
the paper shows that there is no straightforward geneticisation of
heart disease. Instead, there is a contested, complex and uncertain
understanding of heart disease as genetic, a product of the many
people, technologies, natural elements and spaces involved in the
network of genetic science knowledge making. The paper concludes
that a 'critical' ANT could be developed that acknowledges the inherent
unevenness of the network, and connects genetic and socio-spatial
explanations of heart disease.
