Biogenetic paradoxes of the nation : Finn cattle, apples, and other genetic-resource puzzles

Sakari Tamminen traces the ways in which the mandates of 1992's Convention on Biological Diversity—hailed as the key symbol of a common vision for saving Earth's biodiversity—contribute less to biodiversity conservation than to individual nations using genetic resources for economic and cultural gain. In 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed by over 160 countries and hailed as the key symbol of a common vision for saving Earth's biodiversity, set forth three primary mandates: preserving biodiversity, using biodiversity components sustainably, and enabling economic benefit-sharing. The CBD—which gave signatory countries the ability to claim sovereignty over nonhuman genetic resources native to each nation—defined biodiversity through a politics of nationhood in ways that commodified genetic resources. In Biogenetic Paradoxes of the Nation Sakari Tamminen traces the ways in which the CBD's seemingly compatible yet ultimately paradox-ridden aims became manifest in efforts to create, conserve, and capitalize on distinct animal and plant species. In using Finland as a case study with which to understand the worldwide efforts to convert species into manifestations of national identity, Tamminen shows how the CBD's policies contribute less to biodiversity conservation than to smoothing the way for frictionless operation of biotechnologically assisted circuits of the global bioeconomy. Tamminen demonstrates how an intimate look at the high-level politics and technical processes of defining national genetic resources powerfully illuminates the limits of anthropocentric biopolitical theory. "Biogenetic paradoxes of the nation is an ethnography of the patterns and paradoxes developing around the 1992 global Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) treaty, which allowed the 196 signing countries to claim sovereignty over nonhuman life. Under this treaty, biodiversity is defined through the politics of nationhood and codified into commodifiable genetic resources. Focusing on the ethical dilemmas and legal aporias of this political and economic framework, Tamminen shows how the CBD's policies serve biodiversity conservation only in name, contributing more to the global neoliberal practice of ecological imperialism than to preservation. Through exploring how more-than-human worlds have formed an important part of the Finnish national imaginary prior to the signing of the CBD, and how the treaty has affected these relationships, Tamminen shows that in order to transform the "nation," we must change our understanding not only of what it means to be human, but also what it means to be in relationship with these more-than-human worlds." -- Provided by publisher Introduction. The new biopolitics of nature and the nature of (mis)stakes -- Finncattle: biowealth as national life -- Alexander and the (re)birth of nation: apple trees' genetic fingerprinting and the making of a molecular nationhood -- Stilled life: animal gene banks and new infrastructures of life -- Experimental administration: genetic sovereignty and the institutional (bio)politics of nonhuman nationhood -- Conclusion. Biogenetic paradoxes of the nation.