Asian Regeneration? Technohybridity in Taiwan's Biotech?

Stem cell science is a modern global form, yet it serves deeply social and often nationalistic visions of the role of biotechnology, and its practices and meanings are contingent and situated. In this paper, I show how stem cell research represents a deliberate conjoining of biotechnology and national development in Taiwan. This paper is based on more than a year of ethnographic research conducted in Taiwan between 2005 and 2007 and builds upon Charis Thompson's (2010) comparative analysis of flagship stem cell laboratories in Singapore and South Korea. It is also in conversation with Keller and Samuel's (2003) categorical system that classifies Taiwan as a “technohybrid” located between the “technoglobal” and the “technonational.” Here, I argue that while Taiwan's stem cell development incorporates aspects of national, global, and international orientations, these manifest within dynamic and heterogeneous assemblages. Taiwan's national investment in regenerative medicine is a rich site in which to examine visions of a national present and future as well as of Taiwan's place on the stage of global science.