Unravelling BioTechdiversity: Imaginaries, Temporalities & Spaces

Despite decades-long scientific warnings, followed by a significant rise in conservation agreements and public policies, the global biodiversity crisis remains unabated. In the wake of developments in gene editing technologies, scientists and global policy actors are considering contemporary biotechnology as a novel tool in the fight against biodiversity loss. In particular, gene editing and gene drives are tendered to be used for species protection, endangered species recovery, so-called invasive species management, and, species’ genetic pool enrichment.

In this talk, Daphné Esquivel Sada will analyze several gene editing projects dealing with biodiversity conservation.

Her theoretical framework facilitates a dialogue between the concept of socio-technical imaginaries and a decolonial approach to temporalities. Drawing from multiple qualitative data sets, Esquivel Sada will analyze the multifold imaginaries of bioTechdiversity accompanying policy guidelines, public discourses, and laboratory settings across a typology made up of five categories of life: teleological life, unfit life, detrimental life, asynchronous life, and ideal life. She contends that the utilization of contemporary biotechnologies in addressing the worldwide biodiversity crisis is intricately linked to the conservation of colonialism. In conclusion, Esquivel Sada will give an overview of the theoretical and methodological parameters for her next research project, aimed at the application of gene editing technologies for an altogether different scale of biodiversity, namely, the human microbiome.

About the speaker

After completing a bachelor’s degree in Agronomic Engineering in Brazil (Universidade de Sao Paulo), Daphné Esquivel Sada obtained a PhD in sociology from the University of Montréal in the field of sociology of sciences and techniques. She is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Québec à Montréal. At the intersection of social studies of sciences and technologies, critical theory, and environmental humanities, her research investigates the epistemological, political, social, and ethical impacts of contemporary biotechnology in the context of post-natural societies and post-genomic developments. Her current research explores the applications of gene editing technologies as novel tools in the field of biodiversity conservation. She is currently working on her first book manuscript titled Uprooting Biodiversity: Life from Nowhere in the Anthropocene.