International Biodiplomacy and Global Ethical Forms: Relations of Critique Between Public Anthropology and Science in Society

This essay introduces the concept of "biodiplomacy" through a combination of philosophical reflection, historical and etymological arguments, media reports, critical analyses of bioethics controversies, and the author's own participation as a "diplomat" of anthropology for an international commission about science and society. It explores how the notion of corps diplomatique that once represented the Enlightenment ideal of an exclusive, "family of diplomats" is apparent today as the diffusion of an open, more participatory "global talk." The effects of this development on critical social theory are discussed under the rubric of "biodiplomatica"; particular attention is paid to (i) the immanence of critique as a relational mode of action for interventions in public anthropology, and (ii) the theorist's role in seeking to engage a critically reflexive anthropology of bioethics.