CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 367
strategies" are expected to make these sectors less viable so that
investors"expect...toseelessofthatgoingforward"(C.Prattn.pag.).
Now,andinyearsahead,humanlife,especiallyinitsprecariousand
non-normativeconditions,seemsto beagoodinvestment.Accordingly,
various national governments as well as NGOs have written political
papers advocating initiatives in the biotech sectors. This includes the
Obama administration'sNational Bioeconomy Blueprintwhich defines
the bioeconomy broadly conceived (i.e., including its uses for
agriculture) as "an Obama Administration priority because of its
tremendous potential for growth as well as the many other societal
benefitsitoffers"(1).These"benefits"accruealsoagainstageopolitical
background, as the other superpower, China, also relies on genetic
research to further its position as a Global Player.^63 The UN
Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)
has launched its own a proposal, highlighting "the latent value in
biological processes and renewable bioresources to produce improved
health and sustainable growth and development" (OECD qtd. in
MarsdenandMorley216).^64 Thetriangulationofbiology,economy,and
politics has also had strong cultural echoes. Its most jarring example
perhapsisthespecterof"germsatwar."
What is at stake in the current political bio-economy of life is no
longer"theentryofphenomenapeculiartothelifeofthehumanspecies
into the order of knowledge and power" (Foucault,HistoryofSexuality
141) but the conscription of this life into a new order which is both
governmental (biotech having become a key area of governmental
supportant and intervention) and economical (biotech as promising
(^63) AsWen-ChingSunghasshown,theprojectofaChinesegenome(presumably
sponsored by the Chinese government) "plays an increasingly important role in
the building of a [Chinese] bionation." It "adds a biological component" to the
ideology of "Zhonghua minzu," of shared language and culture (284). It also
feeds into the idea of "One China," which plays a geopolitical role in debates
aboutthefutureofTaiwan(285).
(^64) Cf. Kelly E. Happe's observation that especially stem cell research "attracts
financecapitalforthe(theoretically)limitlesspotentialofthesecellstogenerate
new tissues, organs, even gametes. The body is not only commodified, it is
capitalized; it produces commodities in the traditional sense of the term in
additiontocirculatingasakindofcapitalorbiocapital"(27).