The visual politics of animals in bioscience - earmice in the public sphere

This paper reports on a UK social science and anthropological study into the debates surrounding xenotransplantation (XT), involving interviews and focus group discussions across a number of different stakeholders (scientists, regulators and publics - including patient groups and other lay participants). In these discussions, one image in particular - that of 'earmouse' - surfaced repeatedly in consideration of XT and allied areas of bioscience. Whilst the image itself has little technically in common with XT or transgenic biotechnologies, it has nevertheless become ineradicably connected with them. This paper seeks to make sense of earmouse as an iconic reference through which people articulate their differing and highly contested views on bioscience.