Technoscientific’s objets mobility: a biopolitical example trough patents

Abstract

So far, most social studies of mobility and/or bio-politics have focused on the political management of the subjects (migration, control institutions, international tourism, global governmentality processes, etc.).. On the one hand, the paradigm of mobility (Urry and the Lancaster School) has addressed a range of scattered and disjointed human phenomena introducing timidly issues of power. Otherwise, the contemporary biopolitical reflections within the social sciences have always operated with flesh and blood subjects excluding the world of objects (such as claim and complain the actor-network theory (ANT) and other sociological eyes). This article attempts to outline a framework for understanding biopolitical processes related to the mobility of certain objects or networks of objects/subjects; in particular through the ad hoc property titles on technoscientific objects (the patents). Due to certain historical events of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century a international patents network is built (world exhibitions, bilateral, continental agreements, etc...) and together with elements related to the current globalization of intangible techno-scientific properties (TRIPs agreements and the case of biotechnologies or food industries) will serve as examples or case studies to illustrate the dynamics generated by the biopolitical strategic mobility of scientific and technological objects (outcomes of an ownership regime based on international titles genes, chemical formulas biomass, plant or animal species, food, biotech, etc.).