Decontextualised? Dissociated? Detached? Mapping the Networks of Bioinformatics Exchange

Abstract

The author reviews debates surrounding the Icelandic government's Act on a Health Sector Database (139/1998), which provided for the licensing of a private company to build and operate a centralised database of Icelandic medical records for use in gene-discovery research. Using the concept of the ‘boundary object’ drawn from actor-network theory, the author argues that, through their exploitation as bodily commodities, medical records are actively engaged in redefining existing boundaries between medical and scientific space, between civic and individual concerns, and between human subjects and scientific objects.