Race and the new epigenetic biopolitics of environmental health

Postgenomic understandings of fatness and metabolism

'Obesity' has, for decades, been a subject of intense scientific and public interest, and remains a key target for postgenomic science. I examine the emergence of determinism in research into 'obesity' in the postgenomic field of metabolomics. I argue that determinism appears in metabolomics research in two ways: firstly, fragmentation and narrow construal of the environment is evident in metabolomics studies on weight loss interventions, resulting in particular features of the environment (notably, dietary intake) having outsized influence while the wider social environment is neglected. Secondly, studies aiming to characterize the metabolic signature of 'obesity' are guided by a commitment to a deterministic connection between 'obesity' and dysfunction, leading to a neglect or distortion of metabolic heterogeneity across individuals regardless of body size.

The evolution of ACEs: From coping behaviors to epigenetics as explanatory frameworks for the biology of adverse childhood experiences

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have become a topic of public and scientific attention. ACEs denote a range of negative experiences in early life, from sexual abuse to emotional neglect, that are thought to impact health over the life course. The term was coined in the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study, an epidemiological study that surveyed 17,421 adults about ACEs and correlated the responses with participants' current health records. Shortly after the study was published in 1998, the US CDC deemed ACEs an important public health target; however, it is only recently that ACEs feature prominently in scientific and public discourses. We contend that this rise in popularity is linked to the adoption of epigenetic explanations for how ACEs affect health. Based on a literature analysis, we trace the evolution of explanatory frameworks for ACEs-from coping behaviors to allostatic load to epigenetics-and analyze how each of these explanations not only reconsiders the mechanisms by which ACEs affect health, but also who should be held responsible for addressing ACEs and how. Epigenetics provides distinctly different discursive possibilities than previous frameworks: firstly, it offers one distinct molecular mechanism for how ACEs work, lending "molecular credibility" to epidemiological findings; secondly, it raises the possibility of reversing the negative effects of ACEs on the biological level. This epigenetic articulation makes ACEs attractive for new actors in science and society. Particularly, it facilitates novel interdisciplinary collaborations and attracts actors in health advocacy who are interested in non-deterministic readings of ACEs that counteract stigma and support positive health interventions and healing.

Refusing epigenetics: indigeneity and the colonial politics of trauma

Environmental epigenetics is increasingly employed to understand the health outcomes of communities who have experienced historical trauma and structural violence. Epigenetics provides a way to think about traumatic events and sustained deprivation as biological "exposures" that contribute to ill-health across generations. In Australia, some Indigenous researchers and clinicians are embracing epigenetic science as a framework for theorising the slow violence of colonialism as it plays out in intergenerational legacies of trauma and illness. However, there is dispute, contention, and caution as well as enthusiasm among these research communities.In this article, we trace strategies of "refusal" (Simpson, 2014) in response to epigenetics in Indigenous contexts. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Australia with researchers and clinicians in Indigenous health, we explore how some construct epigenetics as useless knowledge and a distraction from implementing anti-colonial change, rather than a tool with which to enact change. Secondly, we explore how epigenetics narrows definitions of colonial harm through the optic of molecular trauma, reproducing conditions in which Indigenous people are made intelligible through a lens of "damaged" bodies. Faced with these two concerns, many turn away from epigenetics altogether, refusing its novelty and supposed benefit for Indigenous health equity and resisting the pull of postgenomics.

A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era

Recent studies demonstrating epigenetic and developmental sensitivity to early environments, as exemplified by fields like the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and environmental epigenetics, are bringing new data and models to bear on debates about race, genetics, and society. Here, we first survey the historical prominence of models of environmental determinism in early formulations of racial thinking to illustrate how notions of direct environmental effects on bodies have been used to naturalize racial hierarchy and inequalities in the past. Next, we conduct a scoping review of postgenomic work in environmental epigenetics and DOHaD that looks at the role of race/ethnicity in human health (2000-2021). Although there is substantial heterogeneity in how race is conceptualized and interpreted across studies, we observe practices that may unwittingly encourage typological thinking, including: using DNA methylation as a novel marker of racial classification; neglect of variation and reversibility within supposedly homogenous racial groups; and a tendency to label and reify whole groups as pathologized or impaired. Even in the very different politico-economic and epistemic context of contemporary postgenomic science, these trends echo deeply held beliefs in Western thinking which claimed that different environments shape different bodies and then used this logic to argue for essential differences between Europeans and non-Europeans. We conclude with a series of suggestions on interpreting and reporting findings in these fields that we feel will help researchers harness this work to benefit disadvantaged groups while avoiding the inadvertent dissemination of new and old forms of stigma or prejudice.

Caring for biosocial complexity. Articulations of the environment in research on the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease

The research field of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) provides a framework for understanding how a wide range of environmental factors, such as deprivation, nutrition and stress, shape individual and population health over the course of a lifetime. DOHaD researchers face the challenge of how to conceptualize and measure ontologically diverse environments and their interactions with the developing organism over extended periods of time. Based on ethnographic research, I show how DOHaD researchers are often eager to capture what they regard as more 'complex' understandings of the environment in their work. At the same time, they are confronted with established methodological tools, disciplinary infrastructures and institutional contexts that favor simplistic articulations of the environment as distinct and mainly individual-level variables. I show how researchers struggle with these simplistic articulations of nutrition, maternal bodies and social determinants as relevant environments, which are sometimes at odds with the researchers' own normative commitments and aspirations.

You Are What Your Mother Endured: Intergenerational Epigenetics, Early Caregiving, and the Temporal Embedding of Adversity

Environmental epigenetics has become a site of growing attention related to the intergenerational effects of stress, trauma, and adversity. This article draws on a multi-sited ethnography of epigenetic knowledge production in the United States and Canada to document how scientists conceptualize, model, and measure these experiences and their effects on children's neurodevelopmental and behavioral health. We find that scientists' efforts to identify the molecular effects of stress, trauma, and adversity results in a temporal focus on the mother-child dyad during early life. This has the effect of biologizing early childhood adversity, positioning it as a consequence of caregiving, and producing epigenetic findings that often align with individually oriented interventions rather than social and structural change. Our analysis suggests that epigenetic models of stress, trauma, and adversity therefore situate histories of oppression, inequality, and subjugation in discrete and gendered family relations, resulting in the temporal embedding of adversity during early life.

Epidemiologists’ ambivalence towards the epigenetics of social adversity

This article studies how social epidemiologists get involved in research carried out on rodent models to explore the biological pathways underpinning exposure to social adversity in early life. We analyze their interdisciplinary exchanges with biologists in a social epigenetics project—i.e., in the experimental study of molecular alterations following social exposures. We argue that social epidemiologists are ambivalent regarding the use of non-human animal models on two levels: first, in terms of whether such models provide scientific evidence useful to social epidemiology, and second, regarding whether such models help promote their conception of public health. While they maintain expectations towards rodent experiments by elevating their functional value over their representational potential, they fear that their research will contribute to a public health approach that focuses on individual responsibility rather than the social causes of health inequalities. This interdisciplinary project demonstrates the difficulties encountered when research in social epigenetics engages with the complexities of laboratory experiments and social environments, as well as the conflicting sociopolitical projects stemming from such research.

From social determinants to social epigenetics: Health geographies of chronic disease

Social epigenetics explores relationships between social factors and health inequities embodied at the molecular level. Through modulating gene expression, epigenetic changes resulting from human-environment interactions may play a role in shaping health trajectories. This paper applies a health geography lens to explore the potential and support for conducting social epigenetic studies of chronic diseases with complex and dynamic etiologies. In so doing, we argue that social epigenetics presents a novel space for investigations of health and disease that is transdisciplinary and builds upon new understandings of bodies and place-based experiences. Given gender disparities in chronic diseases, we adopt a feminist perspective that cogitates the transactive relationships between gender and health/ill-health as mediated by biosocial processes at a variety of scales. Looking forward to the practical undertaking of social epigenetic studies, we assess existing theoretical and methodological support as well as insights to be gained. Reflecting upon the central tenets of health geography, we propose a unique positionality for health geographers to drive this field forward.

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

Epigenetics, defined as 'the study of mitotically and/or meiotically heritable changes in gene function that cannot be explained by changes in DNA sequence', has emerged as a promissory yet controversial field of scientific inquiry over the past decade. Scholars from many disciplines have formulated both optimistic and cautionary claims regarding its potential normative implications. This article provides a comprehensive review of the nascent literature at the crossroads of epigenetics, ethics, law and society. It describes nine emerging areas of discussion, relating to (1) the impact of epigenetics on the nature versus nurture dualism, (2) the potential resulting biologization of the social, (3) the meaning of epigenetics for public health, its potential influence on (4) reproduction and parenting, (5) political theory and (6) legal proceedings, and concerns regarding (7) stigmatization and discrimination, (8) privacy protection and (9) knowledge translation. While there is some degree of similarity between the nature and content of these areas and the abundant literature on ethical, legal and social issues in genetics, the potential implications of epigenetics ought not be conflated with the latter. Critical studies on epigenetics are emerging within a separate space of bioethical and biopolitical investigations and claims, with scholars from various epistemological standpoints utilizing distinct yet complementary analytical approaches.

A task that remains before us: Reconsidering inheritance as a biosocial phenomenon

What doesit mean to inherit? Debates about the meaning of inheritance are numerous in the history and the present of the biological and the social sciences. While the majority of contributions in this special issue discuss hitherto unthought of molecular mechanisms of biological inheritance, this review explores the contested territory of inheritance from a social science perspective. Specifically, it examines contemporary biological research on epigenetic forms of inheritance in its historical and social contexts. To that end, the review explores what biology itself has been inheriting when it comes to how it considers inheritance conceptually and experimentally. I delineate three particularly important strands of inheritance: inheriting a history of eugenics; inheriting determinist reasoning; and inheriting experimental reductionism. I approach the social and scientific meaning of these inheritances by following scholars such as Donna Haraway and Jacques Derrida, who frame inheritance not as a passive occurrence but as an active process, as a task that must be undertaken by those who inherit. Such a framing raises the question of what it might mean to inherit something responsibly - particularly when what needs to be inherited is not an object but a difficult history. I argue that in order to become 'response-able' to this question, researchers who investigate biological inheritance today must engage these histories critically and review their legacies in present-day research. This is a task biologists might not want to undertake alone, but in interdisciplinary collaboration with social scientists and humanities scholars, in order to mobilize multiple forms of expertise for understanding the complex biosocial processes of human inheritance.

Markers as mediators: A review and synthesis of epigenetics literature

Epigenetics, the study of the processes that control gene expression without a change in DNA sequence, highlights the importance of environmental factors in gene regulation. This paper maps the terrain of epigenetics and identifies four main research subfields: gene expression; molecular epigenetics; clinical epigenetics and epigenetic epidemiology. Within and across these fields, we analyse of what is conceptualised as environment and demonstrate the variable ways authors understand epigenetics environments. Then, following an analysis of the discursive strategies employed by epigenetics researchers, we demonstrate how authors portray the interactions between genes, epigenetics, and environment as relationships linking the outside (where the environment is located) with the inside (where the genes are located). We argue that authors assign specific roles to each actor: the environment as the active player initiating the relationship, the genes as recipients, and epigenetics as mediators between environment and genes. Framed as mediators, epigenetic markers can be understood as enablers of communication between environment and genome, capable of processing and organising signals so as to regulate the interactions between the actors of epigenetic relationships. This finding complicates the observation by social science scholars that the interactions between environment and genes can be understood through the concept of signal.

The First Thousand Days: Motherhood, Scientific Knowledge, and Local Histories

Since 2013, South African nutrition policy focuses on "the first thousand days," (conception to two years), informed by Developmental Origins of Health and Disease research. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show how policy foregrounds certain categories of persons and casts "the maternal" as a time frame for interventions to secure future health and argue that this constitutes a "knowledge effect" - the outcome of framing questions in a particular way and with specific knowledge horizons.

Calibrating cancer risk, uncertainty and environments: Genetics and their contexts in southern Brazil

Drawing on empirical ethnographic research in Brazil this paper examines how in the spaces between identifying genetic markers and conditional cancer risk, environments and diverse epigenetic logics are emerging and being negotiated among research and clinical communities, patients and their families. Focusing on an arena of research and medical intervention related to a gene variant known as R337h, thought to occur with high frequency in the south of Brazil and linked to the cancer syndrome Li-Fraumeni, it emphasises the relevance of examining epigenetics as an emic category but also its utility as an analytic category. It shows how in a context of not yet fully knowing how and in what ways R337h contributes to increased cancer, a range of different 'environments' are invoked that unevenly articulate an emerging and still inchoate and unfolding terrain of understanding. In an arena of expanding genomic research and medicine, where the identification of low risk mutations associated with cancer is increasingly common, the Brazilian case provides a particular lens on the way environments and genes are being meaningfully calibrated and how differently implicated communities resourcefully populate the gaps in knowledge and understanding with consequences for research, care and embodied risk.

Gendered imaginaries: situating knowledge of epigenetic programming of health

Our paper explores the value-laden and epistemic resources that scientists working in epigenetics and developmental programming of health and disease (DOHaD) mobilise to produce scientific representations of pregnancy and parenthood, which in turn imagine norms, values, and responsibilities for the protection of future generations. In order to do so, we first describe the place of questions regarding the relative weight of paternal and maternal influences on the health of the offspring in the discursive formalisation of this research in scientific publications. This enables us to identify the mutual constitution of 'prototypes' (i.e. experimental designs, settings, techniques) and 'stereotypes' (i.e. social meanings, beliefs, norms and values) of parental roles in DOHaD and epigenetic biomedical sciences, by means of a specific gendered figuration of paternal influences: the 'father-as-sperm'. Second, and drawing from a set of interviews (N = 15), we describe a tension between this dominant, objectifying molecular discourse and the perspective of individual scientists. The situated perspective of individual researchers provides in fact evidence for a conflictual (moral and epistemic) economy of gendered engagements with parental figurations in DOHaD and epigenetic research, and consequently suggests a more fine-grained, as well as conflictual web of socio-political positioning of this 'knowledge' in its societal circulation.

A Postgenomic Body: Histories, Genealogy, Politics

This article sets the stage for a genealogy of the postgenomic body. It starts with the current transformative views of epigenetics and microbiomics to offer a more pluralistic history in which the ethical problem of how to live with a permeable body - that is plasticity as a form of life - is pervasive in traditions pre-dating and coexisting with modern biomedicine (particularly humoralism in its several ramifications). To challenge universalizing narratives, I draw on genealogical method to illuminate the unequal distribution of plasticity across gender and ethnic groups. Finally, after analysing postgenomics as a different thought-style to genomics, I outline some of its implications for notions of plasticity. I argue that postgenomic plasticity is neither a modernistic plasticity of instrumental control of the body nor a postmodernist celebration of endless potentialities. It is instead closer to an alter-modernistic view that disrupts clear boundaries between openness and determination, individual and community.

Epigenetic Discrimination: Emerging Applications of Epigenetics Pointing to the Limitations of Policies Against Genetic Discrimination

Over more than two decades, various policies have been adopted worldwide to restrict the use of individual genetic information for non-medical reasons by third parties and prevent ‘genetic discrimination’. In this paper, we bring attention to the growing interest for individual epigenetic information by insurers and forensic scientists. We question whether such interest could lead to ‘epigenetic discrimination’ – the differential adverse treatment or abusive profiling of individuals or groups based on their actual or presumed epigenetic characteristics – and argue that we might already be facing the limitations of recently adopted normative approaches against genetic discrimination. First, we highlight some similarities and differences between genetic and epigenetic modifications, and stress potential challenges to regulating epigenetic discrimination. Second, we argue that most existing normative approaches against genetic discrimination fall short in providing oversight into the field of epigenetics. We conclude with a call for discussion on the issue, and the development of comprehensive and forward-looking preventive strategies against epigenetic discrimination.

Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and social responsibility: perspectives from the social sciences

Research in environmental epigenetics explores how environmental exposures and life experiences such as food, toxins, stress or trauma can shape trajectories of human health and well-being in complex ways. This perspective resonates with social science expertise on the significant health impacts of unequal living conditions and the profound influence of social life on bodies in general. Environmental epigenetics could thus provide an important opportunity for moving beyond long-standing debates about nature versus nurture between the disciplines and think instead in 'biosocial' terms across the disciplines. Yet, beyond enthusiasm for such novel interdisciplinary opportunities, it is crucial to also reflect on the scientific, social and political challenges that a biosocial model of body, health and illness might entail. In this paper, we contribute historical and social science perspectives on the political opportunities and challenges afforded by a biosocial conception of the body. We will specifically focus on what it means if biosocial plasticity is not only perceived to characterize the life of individuals but also as possibly giving rise to semi-stable traits that can be passed on to future generations. That is, we will consider the historical, social and political valences of the scientific proposition of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. The key question that animates this article is if and how the notion of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance creates new forms of responsibilities both in science and in society. We propose that, ultimately, interdisciplinary conversation and collaboration is essential for responsible approaches to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in science and society.

The fluidity of biosocial identity and the effects of place, space, and time

Public and scientific conceptions of identity are changing alongside advances in biotechnology, with important relevance to health and medicine. In particular, biological identity, once predominantly conceived as static (e.g., related to DNA, dental records, fingerprints) is now being recognized as dynamic or fluid, mirroring contemporary understandings of psychological and social identity. The dynamism of biological identity comes from the individual body's unique relationship with the world surrounding it, and therefore may best be described as biosocial. This paper reviews advances in scientific understandings of identity and presents a model that contrasts prior static approaches to biological identity from more recent dynamically-relational ones. This emerging viewpoint is of broad significance to health and medicine, particularly as medicine recognizes the significance of biography - i.e. the multiple, dense interactions imparted on a body across spatio-temporal dimensions - to phenotypic prediction, especially disease risk.

Race in an epigenetic time: thinking biology in the plural

The notion that biological memories of environmental experiences can be embedded in the human genome and even transmitted transgenerationally is increasingly relevant in the postgenomic world, particularly in molecular epigenetics, where the genome is conceptualized as porous to environmental signals. In this article I discuss the current rethinking of race in epigenetic rather than genetic terms, emphasizing some of its paradoxical implications, especially for public policy. I claim in particular that: (i) if sociologists want to investigate race in a postgenomic world they should pay more attention to this novel plastic and biosocial view of race; and (ii) there are no reasons to believe that an epigenetic view will extinguish race, or that soft-inheritance claims will produce a less exclusionary discourse than genetics (hard heredity). Quite the opposite, the ground for a re-racialization of social debates and the reinforcement of biological boundaries between groups are highlighted in the article.

Transgenerational epigenetics and environmental justice

Human transmission to offspring and future generations of acquired epigenetic modifications has not been definitively established, although there are several environmental exposures with suggestive evidence. This article uses three examples of hazardous substances with greater exposures in vulnerable populations: pesticides, lead, and diesel exhaust. It then considers whether, if there were scientific evidence of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, there would be greater attention given to concerns about environmental justice in environmental laws, regulations, and policies at all levels of government. To provide a broader perspective on environmental justice the article discusses two of the most commonly cited approaches to environmental justice. John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness, a form of egalitarianism, is frequently invoked for the principle that differential treatment of individuals is justified only if actions are designed to benefit those with the greatest need. Another theory, the capabilities approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, focuses on whether essential capabilities of society, such as life and health, are made available to all individuals. In applying principles of environmental justice the article considers whether there is a heightened societal obligation to protect the most vulnerable individuals from hazardous exposures that could adversely affect their offspring through epigenetic mechanisms. It concludes that unless there were compelling evidence of transgenerational epigenetic harms, it is unlikely that there would be a significant impetus to adopt new policies to prevent epigenetic harms by invoking principles of environmental justice.

Geneticizing Ethnicity and Diet: Anti-doping Science and Its Social Impact in the Age of Post-genomics

While gene doping and other technological means of sport enhancement have become a topic of ethical debate, a major outcome from genomic research in sports is often linked to the regulation of doping. In particular, researchers within the field of anti-doping science, a regulatory science that aims to develop scientific solutions for regulating doped athletes, have conducted genomic research on anabolic-androgenic steroids. Genomic knowledge on anabolic-androgenic steroids, a knowledge base that has been produced to improve doping regulation, has caused the ‘geneticization’ of cultural objects such as ethnic identities and dietary habits. Through examining how anti-doping genomic knowledge and its media representation unnecessarily reify cultural objects in terms of genomics, I argue that Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) research programs in human enhancement should include the social impacts of anti-doping science in their discussions. Furthermore, this article will propose that ELSI scholars begin their academic analysis on anti-doping science by engaging with the recent ELSI scholarship on genomics and race and consider the regulatory and political natures of anti-doping research.

Epigenetics, Media Coverage, and Parent Responsibilities in the Post-Genomic Era

Environmental epigenetics is the study of how exposures and experiences can turn genes "on" or "off" without changing DNA sequence. By examining the influence that environmental conditions including diet, stress, trauma, toxins, and care can have on gene expression, this science suggests molecular connections between the environment, genetics, and how acquired characteristics may be inherited across generations. The rapid expansion of research in this area has attracted growing media attention. This coverage has implications for how parents and prospective parents understand health and their perceived responsibilities for children's wellbeing. This review provides insight into epigenetic research, its coverage in the media, and the social and ethical implications of this science for patients and clinicians. As epigenetic findings continue to elucidate the complex relationships between nature and nurture, it becomes critical to examine how representations of this science may influence patient experiences of risk and responsibility. This review describes some of the social and ethical implications of epigenetic research today.

Epigenetics in the Neoliberal "Regime of Truth": A Biopolitical Perspective on Knowledge Translation

Recent findings in epigenetics have been attracting much attention from social scientists and bioethicists because they reveal the molecular mechanisms by which exposure to socioenvironmental factors, such as pollutants and social adversity, can influence the expression of genes throughout life. Most surprisingly, some epigenetic modifications may also be heritable via germ cells across generations. Epigenetics may be the missing molecular evidence of the importance of using preventive strategies at the policy level to reduce the incidence and prevalence of common diseases. But while this "policy translation" of epigenetics introduces new arguments in favor of public health strategies and policy-making, a more "clinical translation" of epigenetics is also emerging. It focuses on the biochemical mechanisms and epigenetic variants at the origin of disease, leading to novel biomedical means of assessing epigenetic susceptibility and reversing detrimental epigenetic variants. In this paper, we argue that the impetus to create new biomedical interventions to manipulate and reverse epigenetic variants is likely to garner more attention than effective social and public health interventions and therefore also to garner a greater share of limited public resources. This is likely to happen because of the current biopolitical context in which scientific findings are translated. This contemporary neoliberal "regime of truth," to use a term from Michel Foucault, greatly influences the ways in which knowledge is being interpreted and implemented. Building on sociologist Thomas Lemke's Foucauldian "analytics of biopolitics" and on literature from the field of science and technology studies, we present two sociological trends that may impede the policy translation of epigenetics: molecularization and biomedicalization. These trends, we argue, are likely to favor the clinical translation of epigenetics-in other words, the development of new clinical tools fostering what has been called "personalized" or "precision" medicine. In addition, we argue that an overemphasized clinical translation of epigenetics may further reinforce this biopolitical landscape through four processes closely related to neoliberal pathways of thinking: the internalization and isolation (aspects of liberal individualism) of socioenvironmental determinants of health and increased opportunities for commodification and technologicalization (aspects of economic liberalism) of health care interventions.

Epigenetic Determinism in Science and Society

The epigenetic "revolution" in science cuts across many disciplines, and it is now one of the fastest growing research areas in biology. Increasingly, claims are made that epigenetics research represents a move away from the genetic determinism that has been prominent both in biological research and in understandings of the impact of biology on society. We discuss to what extent an epigenetic framework actually supports these claims. We show that, in contrast to the received view, epigenetics research is often couched in language as deterministic as genetics research in both science and the popular press. We engage the rapidly emerging conversation about the impact of epigenetics on public discourse and scientific practice, and we contend that the notion of epigenetic determinism - or the belief that epigenetic mechanisms determine the expression of human traits and behaviors - matters for understandings of the influence of biology and society on population health.

How The Genome Got a Life Span

In the space of little more than a decade, ideas of the human genome have shifted significantly, with the emergence of the notion that the genome an individual changes with development, age, disease, environmental inputs, and time. This paper examines the emergence of the genome with a life span, one that experiences drift, instability and mutability, and a host of other temporal changes. We argue that developments in chromatin biology have provided the basis for this genomic embodiment of experience and exposure. We analyze how time has come to matter for the genome through chromatin, providing analysis of examples in which the human life course is being explored as a set of material changes to chromatin. A genome with a lifespan aligns the molecular and the experiential in new ways, shifting ideas of life stages, their interrelation, and the temporality of health and disease.

'The medical' and 'health' in a critical medical humanities

As befits an emerging field of enquiry, there is on-going discussion about the scope, role and future of the medical humanities. One relatively recent contribution to this debate proposes a differentiation of the field into two distinct terrains, 'medical humanities' and 'health humanities,' and calls for a supersession of the former by the latter. In this paper, we revisit the conceptual underpinnings for a distinction between 'the medical' and 'health' by looking at the history of an analogous debate between 'medical geography' and 'the geographies of health' that has, over the last few years, witnessed a re-blurring of the distinction. Highlighting the value of this debate within the social sciences for the future development of the medical humanities, we call for scholars to take seriously the challenges of critical and cultural theory, community-based arts and health, and the counter-cultural creative practices and strategies of activist movements in order to meet the new research challenges and fulfill the radical potential of a critical medical humanities.

Mapping the new molecular landscape: social dimensions of epigenetics

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the DNA itself. The field is rapidly growing and being widely promoted, attracting attention in diverse arenas. These include those of the social sciences, where some researchers have been encouraged by the resonance between imaginaries of development within epigenetics and social theory. Yet, sustained attention from science and technology studies (STS) scholars to epigenetics and the praxis it propels has been lacking. In this article, we reflexively consider some of the ways in which epigenetics is being constructed as an area of biomedical novelty and discuss the content and logics underlying the ambivalent promises being made by scientists working in this area. We then reflect on the scope, limits and future of engagements between epigenetics and the social sciences. Our discussion is situated within wider literatures on biomedicine and society, the politics of "interventionist STS," and on the problems of "caseness" within empirical social science.