Since its inception in 1991, the design of the proposed Human Genome Divers
ity Project has shifted several times. However, one unchanging and central
Project goal is to collect blood and other human tissue samples from 'genet
ically distinct' indigenous groups around the globe. This goal has proved h
ighly controversial, and the Diversity Project has thus far failed to move
beyond the planning stage. In this paper I argue that the reason for the Pr
oject's inconclusive and open-ended character is that project organizers ar
e attempting to stabilize and control a highly contested terrain structured
by emotionally and politically charged discourses. These discourses inextr
icably entangle scientific and social issues including North/South relation
s, colonization, intellectual property rights and the origins of human dive
rsity To move forward, as the paper demonstrates, project organizers would
have to negotiate these entanglements, and 'coproduce' a natural and social
order that could accommodate their project. The paper explains why this pr
ocess of coproduction proved to be so labour-intensive in the case of the D
iversity Project, and why the Project's main responses to its critics to da
te have failed to provide the tools needed to do this work.