Recreational Genetics and Re-Imagining Agency for the Disabled Biocitizen

• In Event: Tinkering with the Human: Technologies Defining The Self And Other Queer/Crip Premonitions

Abstract

23andMe sells the idea of controlling one’s bodymind and biological future, but also the illusion of knowing one’s true self. This commodification and visual representation of “health” through 23andMe’s Health+Ancestry Service reconfigures what it means to be a “correct” biocitizen and bioconsumer, as they are privatizing medical decisions and selling access to our own genomes. However, 23andMe plays into the pre-existing desire to erase disabled bodyminds (Clare, 2017; Kafer, 2013). How can we re-think ways we relate to and understand health and disability within the expanding reach of these biotech products to re-imagine agency for the disabled biocitizen?

Presenter

• Sav Schlauderaff, University of Arizona