Law, biomedical technoscience, and imaginaries

Abstract

This special issue advances understanding of the way in which imaginaries underpin law’s engagement with biomedical technologies and science. It is the first collection of law-led interdisciplinary accounts of imaginaries. The articles draw upon examples from biomedical technoscience to illuminate the hitherto unseen or underappreciated roles of imaginaries in the relationships between law and biomedical technoscience. We have conceptualized ‘law’, ‘biomedical technoscience’, and ‘imaginaries’ in broad, inclusive, and dynamic ways. ‘Law’ and ‘biomedical technoscience’ (biomedical technology and science) require no further clarification. ‘Imaginaries’, though, is a relatively novel concept within legal, socio-legal, and regulatory studies scholarship, 1 and as such it requires an introduction. In the following, we introduce imaginaries before explaining how this special issue aims to address the dearth of law, ensuring and mediating the boundaries of responsibility and accountability, and the legitimation of law and regulation, seem to be even more pressing. We believe it is essential that imaginaries figure more centrally in addressing these questions, and that law, encompassing legal and regulatory arrangements and discourse, takes a more central place in discussion on imaginaries. Imaginaries are central to investigating and resolving the ‘state of delicate tension’ between law, technology, and society. 12 It is with this in mind that we hope this special issue spurs further discussion.