Evaluate an attempt at public engagement/participation in genetics and/or biotechnology of your choice. Based on your analysis and on what you have learnt in SOC251, what lessons or recommendations are there for policy makers, members of the public, patients, researchers, farmers, the biotechnology industry, etc.?
Your case study can include participatory development, RRI, or anything that claims to be more than just ‘1st order thinking’ (whether they succeed is another matter). It should be from the last 8 years (2015-2023).
Participedia.net might be a good place to start your research.
Your brief’s title might be:
– Participatory development: Explaining the successful adoption of GM bananas in Mozambique [I totally made this up – I have no idea if GM bananas have been adopted in Mozambique!]
– Public engagement in gene drive technology in Mexico: Learning from the GM debates
– In vitro meat: Why we should consult with a range of stakeholders
– Exploring options for responsible research and innovation in precision medicine
Absorption is getting engrossed in recreational activities or getting engaged in every day work. During absorption attention is more focused and stable where as environmental and personal context is impaired. As voluntary control and awareness are the major elements of consciousness , when there is a disruption seen in one or both the process, disassociation is seen to be present. According to some studies there are multiple form of dissociative experience under which Absorption and Imaginative Involvement is one form under which individuals feel that when they are watching T.V or a movie they become very absorbed in the story that are unaware of what other events are happening around them(NielsG. Walller 1996)
Some filmmakers also intentionally seek to induce an altered state of consciousness in their audience, by doing this self-awareness can be reduced and personal concerns thereby dislocated, for some time. Here dissociation may act as a psychological clutch allowing the individual to disengage from aversive or wearisome experience Or they seem to be , flights into escapist behaviours (may) reflect the painfulness of having to be continuously aware of the variety of unfinished businesses in one’s life which cannot be acted upon relatively quickly.(Lisa.D.Butler,2006) According to Buttler and Palesh watching films videos or television are viewed as deliberately engaging in dissociative experiences. Video terminal Dissociation Trance was an attempt to develop knowledge of disorders which are connected to virtual realities this involve having a significant disturbances in the state of consciousness, identity, and memory, the dilution of self-awareness and self-integrity, and the replacement of the customary sense of personal identity by a new virtual identity. There are three factors considered under video terminal dissociative trance which are regression, Addiction and Dissociation, in this dissociation as a defence mechanism allows the people to avoid emotional distress for some time by screening out excessive or over whelming stimulus.( Adraino Schimmentil, 2017).