Ungovernable genomes: the myth of Asilomar in the French online political context between 2002 and 2022
Résumé
The historiography on democratic debates over what could be done to genomes since the early 1960s is now well established. This paper contends that among the possible blueprints for such debates, the Asilomar conference’s status as a model to be refined has become increasingly contested. The case of France shows that over two decades, from the national presidential election of 2002 to the one of 2022, online debates on how to govern genome modification have been reclaimed by political activists who questioned its relevance. Using a mixed method approach relying on both interviews conducted with scientists present at Asilomar and a newly developed software strategy to explore the French internet archive hosted at Bibliothèque Nationale de France, I argue that over that period, the relationship to the “myth” of Asilomar has become a sociopolitical marker. To that extent, the widening scope of the critical memories of that event helps us understand the difficulties of genome engineering-related policymaking. Over half of a century, the capacities of molecular biologist have been enhanced by several orders of magnitude and yet the genomes they work on have remained ungovernable.