Reconfigured bodies: The problem of ownership

This essay explores issues of ownership as one particularly potent site of struggle in the biotechnological arena. The article begins with the concept of ownership, followed by a discussion of the problem with conceptualizing the body as property. The author then maps the terrain of ownership, using the cadaver market, the organ trade, the market for replenishable human biological materials, and the market for genetic materials as examples. Two landmark legal cases (Diamond v. Chakarbarty and Moore v. Regents of the University of California) illustrate the limitations of traditional discourse on the body and the increasing urgency with which relations of power and agency play out in the biotechnology arena. New configurations of the body emerging in the biotechnology arena indicate that communication scholarship needs new conceptual tools in order to address what it means to be/have a body. Copyright © 2005 International Communication Association