ReWrite: Advancing humanities-based knowledge on human/nature relations in biotechnology

After decades of disagreement about the role of biotechnology in sustainable agriculture, new techniques for genome editing have emerged. These techniques, such as CRISPR/CAS-systems, are claimed to be easier, cheaper, more precise than earlier forms of biotechnology, such as genetic modification (GM). Importantly, the techniques are also claimed to be more natural because they does not necessarily involve the insertion of genes from other species.

The rapid emergence and uptake of the technology is seeing policy makers now struggling to navigate this controversial new field. Both the ethical and the regulatory framework for considering biotechnology needs updating.

The ReWrite project aims to produce knowledge that can help decision makers develop policy and regulations that meet the challenge of developing sustainable food systems. We conduct an environmental ethics analyses of how human/nature relations are being reimagined and rewritten by genome editing and suggest a new framework based on a relational ethics, we perform discourse analysis to bring forth knowledge about how different people and groups think about, communicate and debate genome editing. To facilitate public participation and stimulate creative thinking, the research will be conducted and communicated in collaboration with artists.

The ReWrite Project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council’s program SAMKUL - Research program on the cultural conditions underlying social change. Projects in the SAMKUL program produce knowledge relevant for major challenges in relation to humans and nature, technology and material surroundings, knowledge, welfare and economy.