Apparatuses as loci of bio-political emergence: development of genetic testing in Belgium

In his vision of “biopolitics” Lemke (2011) proposes to conceptualize life and politics as entities intertwined within a dynamic relationship. These technologies change the production of norms and the apparatuses (Foucault 2008) organizing the distribution of the living in the domain of utility: therefore biopolitics must be analyzed as center pieces in the transformation of politics.
The developments in genomics and epigenetics support the vision of the individual body as an “information network” rather than a physical substrate. The experts (with the active support of the patients) construct models for the calculation of life in the development of policy regulation and contribute actively to frame the policy relevant issues – either at individual or at population level, on the basis of power strategies mobilizing and disseminating specific forms of knowledge which are disciplined and selective.
The contribution will present the recent evolution of the apparatuses producing the technical regulation and financial norms for the use of genetic testing in the federal Belgian public health system, considering the two complementary level of the “dispositif” :
- At the political level, transformation of the « Conseil supérieur de la Génétique humaine » (1973-2013) into a « Collège de médecins pour le centre de génétique humaine » and the development of new control relations between the subsidizing and control bodies and the hospitals,
- At the individual level, transformation of the cooperation between medical doctors, biomedical experts and psycho-sociologists in the relationship with the patients, as they can be observed at the level of the hospital;
Who has the resources (intellectual, technological or financial) to control the technology and its use ? what are the social, institutional and technological constrains? who defines and select the legitimate options ?
The analysis is not so much normative than critical, giving due attention to the social context and contingent rationalities in the evolution of this peculiar political action, with the aim of opening new areas of discussions transgressing disciplinary and institutional borders which are too often considered as self evident.