The nature of Prozac

This article addresses the relations between 'nature' and 'culture' (and th ose characteristics associated with 'the natural' and 'the cultural') in th e context of the debates about Prozac. Following Marilyn Strathern, I focus specifically on the contested issue of enablement - that is, on what Proza c does or does not enable, and on the relation between enablement and enhan cement, normality and pathology. I argue that the implications of the model of the brain that accompanies explanations of Prozac are such that comment ators are obliged to address not only the nature of normality but also the nature of nature itself. Through a close analysis of these debates, I sugge st that critiques of Prozac should be understood not as objections to reduc tionism - to a biology that closes things down - but rather to one that ope ns things up: that opens up the relations between nature, culture, biology and the individual, relations that are now cross-cut and thrown about by ar tificiality. Objections to Prozac, then, might be characterized as an attem pt to put these concepts back into their 'proper' positions, to re-establis h the relationality between them. In conclusion, I argue that the biology p ut forward by proponents of psychopharmacology, regardless of the desirabil ity of the latter, challenges not only the frequent assumptions that are ma de about the claims of materialist science, but also some of the terms and concepts that are commonly deployed in the social sciences.