Genetic risks and healthy choices: creating citizen-consumers of genetic services through empowerment and facilitation
Genetic risks and healthy choices: creating citizen-consumers of genetic services through empowerment and facilitation
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01202.x
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发表时间：
2010-03-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Harvey, Alison
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Harvey, Alison
用于确定对各种常见复杂疾病易感性的基因检测正日益普及。在这篇文章中，重点关注饮食相关疾病的遗传易感性测试的发展，我检查了直接面向消费者的基因测试服务的出现和医疗保健提供的（重新）配置，在英国的专业遗传学服务内部和外部。我在这些实践中确定了两个关键技术：授权和促进。利用福柯的社会理论，我展示了赋权和促进被定位为创造公民消费者的工具，这些消费者将根据他们的基因分析结果做出适当的饮食选择。通过这些技术，个人被转变为具有企业家精神的公民，他们将通过明智的选择，采取行动，使他们的“重要资本”（健康）和社会主体的资本最大化。我认为，这些服务的使用者不是纯粹的经济人物，作为消费者做出理性的选择，而是她作为公民消费者的配置，以适当的方式利用自己的遗传信息和服务，确保她适合为我们现在的经济生活做出贡献。
Genetic testing to identify susceptibility to a variety of common complex diseases is increasingly becoming available. In this article, focusing on the development of genetic susceptibility testing for diet-related disease, I examine the emergence of direct-to-the-consumer genetic testing services and the (re)configuration of healthcare provision, both within and outside the specialist genetics service, in the UK. I identify two key techniques within these practices: empowerment and facilitation. Using Foucauldian social theory, I show that empowerment and facilitation are being positioned as tools for the creation of citizen-consumers who will make appropriate dietary choices, based on the results of their genetic analysis. Through these techniques, individuals are transformed into properly entrepreneurial citizens who will, through judicious choices, act to maximise their 'vital capital' (their health) and the capital of the social body. I argue that the user of these services is not purely an economic figure, making rational choices as a consumer, but that her configuration as a citizen-consumer who avails herself of genetic information and services in a proper manner ensures that she is fit to contribute to the economic life of our present.