Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Science, Technology & Human Values
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Felt, U.
Right arrow Articles by Winkler, P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Article

Coming to Terms With Biomedical Technologies in Different Technopolitical Cultures: A Comparative Analysis of Focus Groups on Organ Transplantation and Genetic Testing in Austria, France, and the Netherlands

Ulrike Felt, Ph.D.1*, Maximilian Fochler, Ph.D.1, and Peter Winkler2

1 University of Vienna
2 FH Wien University of Applied Sciences of WKW

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ulrike.felt{at}univie.ac.at.


  Abstract
In this comparative analysis of twelve focus groups conducted in Austria, France, and the Netherlands, we investigate how lay people come to terms with two biomedical technologies. Using the term "technopolitical culture," we aim to show that the ways in which technosciences are interwoven with a specific society frame how citizens build their individual and collective positions toward them. We investigate how the focus group participants conceptualized organ transplantation (OT) and genetic testing (GT), their perceptions of individual agency in relation to the two technologies and to more collective forms of acting and governing, and also their understanding of the two technologies' relationship to broader societal value systems. Against the background of the sustained political effort to build common European values, we suggest that more fine-grained attention toward the culturally embedded differences in coming to terms with biomedical technologies is needed.

First published on October 27, 2009
Science, Technology & Human Values 2009, doi:10.1177/0162243909345839
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?