Marko Synésio Alves Monteiro, Os dilemas do humano: reinventando o corpo humano numa era (bio)tecnológica, Annablume, 2012
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17156
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2038-3460
17156
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Denise M. Nunes
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Marko Synésio Alves Monteiro, Dilemmas of the Human: Reinterpreting the Human Body in the (bio)Technological age, Annablume, 2012
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Book Reviews
2014-01-04
2023-06-12
2014-01-04
2023-11-07
160-162
TS
Denise M. Nunes
2013
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17156
160
University of Santa Catarina
2038-3460
2
en
162
Marko Synésio Alves Monteiro, Dilemmas of the Human: Reinterpreting the Human Body in the (bio)Technological age, Annablume, 2012
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17156/16063
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160                                                        Tecnoscienza – 4 (2)

Marko Synésio Alves Monteiro
Os dilemas do humano: reinventando o corpo humano numa era
(bio)tecnológica [Dilemmas of the Human: Reinterpreting the Human
Body in the (bio)Technological age]
São Paulo, Annablume, 2012, pp. 168

Denise M. Nunes University of Santa Catarina

     The book by Marko Synésio Alves Monteiro presents issues that cross
the process of construction of individual identity, taking into account
how the body is perceived by both the individual and the look of others.
The volume provides the reader with a reflection on the relationship be-
tween body, technology and society, pointing out the inextricable inter-
weaving of these three elements in contemporary times.
     Following a STS approach and focusing on sociological insights, this
volume analyzes the body as focus and cause of human dilemmas related
to health, consumer culture and the politicization of life (just to make a
few examples). Inspired by Donna Haraway’s political utopia, the author
seeks to contribute to debates regarding the relationship between body
and science.
     The presentation of the book, written by Professor Laymert Garcia
dos Santos (University Estadual de Campinas), challenges the reader in-
troducing some “almost existential” questions. Do we have or do we are a
body? The dilemma between ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ in this case points out
the perception of a supposedly singular individual, who has notion of its
existence beyond him/herself. Discussions on the body are often polar-
ized between individuals and species, and individuals and society. Ac-
cording to Santos, the book by Marko Monteiro seeks to map what is
happening with the body in the “postmodern” age, focusing on its role of
information brokerage. Santos explains that for Monteiro technoscience
is building an operative logic that sees the body as a cybernetic organism,
i.e. the cyborg as presented by Donna Haraway. This assumption leads to
one main dilemma: the individuals' ability to reinvent their own body
through options offered by (bio)technology. Aiming at analyzing new re-
lationships between science, technology and corporeality, Monteiro dis-
cusses dilemmas about the reinvention of the body, in a relational context
between the material existence of the body itself and its representations.
     The aim of the book is to discuss new relations between science, tech-
nology and corporeality, seeking to understand how new scientific prac-
tices associated with biotechnology alter the forms of material existence
of the body. The book is structured into eight chapters dealing with dif-
ferent situations involving the body's relationship with biotechnology.
The work takes as its point of departure the way biotechnologies reshape
the body and, as a point of arrival, the way contemporary art uses this re-
Book Review                                                             161
configuration from the moment in which artists use their own bodies as
part of an aesthetic-policy action. This way, the author want discuss the
relationship between materiality (as a material ontology) and body repre-
sentation. All analysis has as background a rich theoretical framework of
the humanities and social sciences.
    In the first chapter, Monteiro presents a case study on biomarkers of
prostate cancer with the aim of offering a vision of new empirical rela-
tionships between living matter and the technology discussed throughout
the book. The object of this debate is the DNA chip, they are microarrays
where stretches of DNA are fixed in order to determine how they react to
medications. This object has enabled a discussion on a perception of the
body as object of information, manipulable and measurable. This DNA
chip contains organic matter on an artificial blade. It works like a cyborg
in miniature, and thus follows a logic of representation and manipulation
logic (the digital body). The author sought here to distinguish the idea of
the "body as machine" from the idea of the "body as information" that is
shaping up inside laboratories through scientific practices.
    The chapters two, three and four are addressed more theoretical
problems.
    Chapter two discuss theoretical problems involving the sociology of
science and its epistemological consequence. Introducing the debate ex-
isting between authors pioneers in the field of Social Studies of Science
and Technology (as Bourdieu, Merton, Latour, Woolgar, etc.), Monteiro
discuss the idea of "science as practice" in order to present the scientific
knowledge like something socially constructed.
    In chapter three, the author presents the body as object of social theo-
ry. From the Cartesian perspective, which sees the mind separate from
the body (reducing the latter to its materiality), Monteiro shows how this
view of the body is insufficient to explain the new developments associat-
ed technology. Referring to Pierre Bourdieu, Merleau-Ponty and Michel
Foucault, the author discusses the relationship between nature and cul-
ture. From this discussion the author concludes that the technologies
linked to genetic need to be understood beyond our "representational"
(symbolic) body. Monteiro calls attention on the idea of control as a so-
cial practice and on the ways in which it starts to engage with the molecu-
lar sphere.
    The fourth chapter focuses on the concepts of human and humanism,
taking as a starting point the new standard for artistic representation of
man which occurs in the Renaissance. Monteiro continues showing the
Cartesian rupture and the advent of the body-machine: body and spirit
are now dissociated. The body is nomore holy and it becomes a function-
al material.
    The genetic theory as a new dogma of biology is the subject of the
fifth chapter. For the author, the assumptions of molecular biology are
directly related to mechanistic explanations (as he explained in the previ-
ous chapter). The genetic is considered to be the holder of the truth
162                                                           Tecnoscienza – 4 (2)

about life and the gene becomes a material entity used for explanatory
purposes. In this case, the molecular biology, from genetic theory, pro-
vides a "final explanation" for life, as Descartes craved.
     Hitherto, Monteiro presents and discusses translations of physiologi-
cal body to the body-information as it occurs in the laboratory. The au-
thor also shows how the molecular biology appears as owner of the abso-
lute truth of the biology. Then, in chapter six he presents a discussion of
the possible consequences of these processes. In other words, here are
discussed political issues that are raised by the possibility to manipulate
the body. The potential here is interpreted as a possible way of linking
technology/body/policy arising from biotechnology. This issue becomes
central, as a historical example of the most radical expression of a logic of
life politicization.
     In contrast to chapter six, chapter seven examines practices of recreat-
ing the body distinct from those offered by eugenics. The focus is on the
manipulation of the living matter (the body) for aesthetic purposes. Bio-
art appears here as a particular mobilization of the potential originated
from advances in genetics. It dislocates laboratory practice in order to
promote an ethical debate about the relationship between technology and
life. Bio-art allows to create new ethical uses of technology and this ethic-
aesthetic becomes a critical weapon against the possibility of a genetic de-
terminism (author argues).
     In the concluding chapter, Monteiro points out that biotechnology
should not be banned, although it certainly has an eugenic potential that
should be questioned. The author suggests that we should seek new and
different machinic assemblages for biotechnologies, more consistent with
our democratic ideals and able to preserve existing life forms.
     When thinking about the possibility of reinvention of the body in a
biotechnology age, many other questions arise and the book by Marko
Monteiro presents numerous theoretical concerns and explanations. This
is a dense and intense reading highly relevant for scholars interested in
studying the body in its social relationship with new (bio)technologies.
After its reading, new questions related to the body (and beyond) will
arise.
                                        !
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                                     ***
!
Stefano Ossicini
L’universo è fatto di storie non solo di atomi. Breve storia delle truffe sci-
entifiche [The Universe is Made of Stories, not Only of Atoms. A Brief
History of Scientific Frauds]
Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2012, pp. 286

Giuseppe Pellegrini University of Padua
