Eireiner Anna Verena
Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RF UK.
Biosocieties. 2025;20(3):419-448. doi: 10.1057/s41292-024-00347-w. Epub 2025 Jan 28.
DIY biology, or Do-It-Yourself biology, refers to a movement where individuals and communities establish laboratories outside traditional academic and industrial settings-such as in garages, kitchens, or community spaces. DIY biologists experiment with gene-editing technologies like CRISPR, cultivate glow-in-the-dark plants, and engineering colorful fungi. This practice challenges established norms in research, advocating for decentralized and community-driven approaches to scientific inquiry and innovation. DIY biologists are often trained scientists who choose to conduct their research in community or home laboratories. The DIY biology movement highlights that science's boundaries are flexible and sometimes ambiguous (Gieryn in Am Sociol Rev 48:781-795, 1983). By operating outside traditional research institutions, DIY biologists challenge established authority, hierarchies, funding structures, and proprietary regimes. They create a distinct identity beyond the increasingly neoliberalized institutional spheres of modern knowledge production, showcasing alternative ways to pursue science. I theorize DIY biology as 'extra-institutional science' due to its emergence outside conventional laboratories of industry and academia. This research draws on empirical data from interviews with DIY biologists and the 2021 DIY Biology Community Survey.
DIY生物学，即自己动手做生物学，指的是一种个人和团体在传统学术与工业环境之外建立实验室的活动，比如在车库、厨房或社区空间。DIY生物学家会用像CRISPR这样的基因编辑技术做实验，培育能在黑暗中发光的植物，以及改造色彩斑斓的真菌。这种做法挑战了既定的研究规范，倡导以分散化和社区驱动的方式进行科学探究与创新。DIY生物学家通常是接受过专业训练的科学家，他们选择在社区或家庭实验室开展自己的研究。DIY生物学运动凸显出科学的界限是灵活的，有时甚至模糊不清（吉里恩，《美国社会学评论》，1983年，第48卷，第781 - 795页）。通过在传统研究机构之外开展活动，DIY生物学家挑战了既定的权威、等级制度、资金结构和所有权制度。他们在现代知识生产日益新自由主义化的机构领域之外创造了一种独特的身份，展示了追求科学的其他途径。由于DIY生物学是在工业界和学术界的传统实验室之外兴起的，我将其理论化为“超机构科学”。这项研究借鉴了对DIY生物学家的访谈以及《2021年DIY生物学社区调查》中的实证数据。
