Science, neoliberalism and the bioeconomy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52712/issn.1850-0013-687Keywords:
bioeconomy, biotechnology, neoliberalism, market, scienceAbstract
The bioeconomy is a project as well as a vision that stems from the neoliberal narrative of economic growth and competitiveness. It essentially makes reference to a new economy based on the technological manipulation, exploitation and appropriation of the living matter. This article aims to draw a map of the imaginaries and objectives of the bioeconomy through an analysis of the discourses elaborated by the EU and the OECD. It explores the relation between the bioeconomy as a narrative, with its public policy strategies and the neoliberal philosophy that underpins the latter. The bioeconomy emerges, thus, as a step further compared to the knowledge economy, in the neoliberal process oriented towards the extension of market-based ethics and practices to social and biological domains previously regulated in a different way. Turning to the cases of assisted reproduction and biopharming, this paper also shows the role of biotechnologies in the emergences, institutionalization and regulation of the bioeconomy. In its conclusion, it addresses some of the most challenging implications of a transition towards a bioeconomy, such as the process of de-politicization and restriction of access to natural resources that bioeconomies need to take off and consolidate.
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