Human enhancement, biocyborg and self-experimentation: biopower in the age of synthetic biology and gene editing

Abstract

Synthetic biology and gene editing opens new possibilities for human enhancement requiring ethical, societal and biopolitical considerations to evaluate its implications on the biopower and the human species. In this article, from a critical and exploratory analysis, we advocate that recent biotechnological developments allowed by synthetic biology (including gene editing) are transforming the line of forces of biopower and biopolitics. After having described the paradigm of life as an engineering discipline conveyed by synthetic biology, we first analyze using the concept of somatechnology that this technoscience is transforming the figure of the cyborg towards the biocyborg blurring the distinctions natural/artificial and man/machine. In second, we investigate the bioeconomy of enhancement and its effect on how the individuals developed new modes of subjectivation and how they consider their own bodies. We end the article by analysing the transformations of biopower with gene editing and the use of technologies of genetic self-modification by self-experimenters.