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Bio-Identification, Value Creation and the Reproductive Bioeconomy: Insights from the Reprogenetics Sector in Spain

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Bioeconomies

Abstract

This chapter addresses the social, economic, legal and political articulations of the reproductive bioeconomy in Spain . More specifically, it studies the process of value creation , appropriation and distribution sustaining the reprogenetics sector of the Spanish reproductive bioeconomy . Drawing from 28 semi-structured interviews with IVF patients undergoing PGD/PGS in Spain, Pavone suggests that value does not proceed entirely from the extraction and appropriation of the latent (re)generative capabilities of the human body , but rather from the incorporation of reproductive tissue and practices in the capitalist regime of accumulation . This incorporation seems to be accomplished through a process of bio-identification, which stabilizes recalcitrant bio-objects , like PGD/PGS embryos , and attributes value to them as they get incorporated into a reprogenetics value chain based on four, overlapping, technical, normative, social and economic steps.

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Pavone, V. (2017). Bio-Identification, Value Creation and the Reproductive Bioeconomy: Insights from the Reprogenetics Sector in Spain. In: Pavone, V., Goven, J. (eds) Bioeconomies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55651-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55651-2_6

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