Biosociality

Biosociality happens when people diagnosed with a disease or condition form a self-identity around the diagnosis. Those afflicted can reflect on themselves as a specific kind of person, find others with the same disorder, and even develop a sort of kinship with that group.

In 1996, the anthropologist Paul Rabinow predicted in his work titled Essays on the Anthropology of Reason that biosocial connections, like the one formed by the young woman, would eventually emerge around infinitesimal, single-allele variations in our DNA [Rabinow 1996:102]. Less than two decades later, there are numerous patient groups centered on rare diseases and still others that are centered on the type of minute genetic variations that Rabinow foresaw.