Thinking (Bioeconomies) Through Care: Patients’ Engagement with the Bioeconomies of Parenting

Abstract

This chapter explores the ambivalences and tensions of parents’ engagement in health bioeconomies as forms of activating care , through the analysis of two case studies concerned with childbirth and first moments of parental life—private cord blood banking and mastitis during breastfeeding . The article focuses on parents’ contributions to the bioeconomy as providers of bodily tissues —stem cells , blood, breast milk or other samples of biological materials—to be preserved, employed in research or used to produce bio-objects by bioeconomic companies. Santoro and Romero-Bachiller draw on recent STS and feminist writing on care to argue that thinking through care allows for a more nuanced approach to the analysis of citizens’ and patients’ emergent forms of subjectivity and agency brought about by new biotechnologies.