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Appleby J. Ageing and disease risk factors: A new paleoepidemiological methodology for understanding disease in the past. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PALEOPATHOLOGY 2024; 44:33-45. [PMID: 38134630 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2023.11.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2023] [Revised: 11/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/24/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES To outline a methodology that enables the reconstruction of age-related disease risk in past societies. MATERIALS Modern epidemiological evidence considering risk factors for age-related disease is combined with contextual information about an archaeological society of interest. METHODS Data gathered is used to create a qualitative population-specific risk model for the disease of interest. To provide a case study, a risk model is constructed for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in the Eastern English Bronze Age. RESULTS This enables the first rigorous approach to reconstructing age-related disease risk in the past. A risk model shows a high degree of COPD risk in the Eastern English Bronze Age, with a major contribution from indoor airborne pollution and agricultural practices. SIGNIFICANCE This represents a significant new approach in human paleopathology, facilitating understanding of the occurrence of a wide variety of diseases in the past, without the need for well-preserved skeletons of identified elderly individuals. LIMITATIONS The risk models generated are, of necessity, qualitative rather than quantitative, since we are unable to calculate the size of risk factors in the past with certainty. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH The methodology could be applied to a wide variety of diseases and for many past societies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jo Appleby
- School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, England.
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2
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Andersen RS, Høybye MT, Risør MB. Expanding Medical Semiotics. Med Anthropol 2024; 43:91-101. [PMID: 38437012 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2024.2324892] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/05/2024]
Abstract
This special issue explores the evolving landscape of medical semiotics of conventional biomedicine. With expansion we refer to the range of phenomena considered signs or symptoms of underlying disease, but also the growing anthropological attention to the medical sign system in ways which reach beyond classic semiotic analysis. The articles testify to the expansion in terms of empirical foci and theoretical contributions. As part of the introduction, we discuss three modes of reading symptoms within medical anthropology: the hermeneutic, material, and critical readings, all highlighting the crucial role of medical anthropology in understanding the biosocial and cultural dimensions of medical semiotics.
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Affiliation(s)
- R S Andersen
- Department of Public Health, Family Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
- Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - M T Høybye
- Interacting Minds Centre, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Elective Surgery Center, Silkeborg Regional Hospital, Silkeborg, Denmark
| | - M B Risør
- Center for General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- The General Practice Research Unit, Department of Community Medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
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Chiapperino L. Enacting biosocial complexity: Stress, epigenetic biomarkers and the tools of postgenomics. SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 2024:3063127231222613. [PMID: 38214449 DOI: 10.1177/03063127231222613] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2024]
Abstract
This article analyses attempts to enact complexity in postgenomic experimentations using the case of epigenetic research on biomarkers of psychosocial stress. Enacting complexity in this research means dissecting multiple so-called biosocial processes of health differentiation in the face of stressful experiences. To characterize enactments of biosocial complexity, the article develops the concepts of complexity work and complexification. The former emphasizes the social, technical, and material work that goes into the production of mixed biological and social representations of stress in epigenetics. The latter underlines how complexity can be assembled differently across distinct configurations of experimental work. Specifically, complexification can be defined as producing, stabilizing, and normalizing novel experimental systems that are supposed to improve techno-scientific enactments of complexity. In the case of epigenetics, complexification entails a reconfiguration of postgenomic experimental systems in ways that some actors deem 'better' at enacting health as a biosocial process. This study of complexity work and complexification shows that biosocial complexity is hardly a univocal enterprise in epigenetics. Consequently, the article calls for abandoning analysis of these research practices using clear-cut dichotomies of reductionism vs. holism, as well as simplicity vs. complexity. More broadly, the article suggests the relevance of a sociology of complexification for STS approaches to complexity in scientific practices. Complementing the existing focus on complexity as instrumental rhetoric in contemporary sciences, complexification directs analytical attention to the pragmatic opportunities that alternative (biosocial) complexities offer to collective, societal, and political thinking about science in society.
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Glass DJ, al-Tameemi Z, Farquhar S. Advancing an individual-community health nexus: Survey, visual, and narrative meanings of mental and physical health for Arab emerging adults. SSM - MENTAL HEALTH 2023; 4:100281. [PMID: 38188867 PMCID: PMC10767648 DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmmh.2023.100281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2024] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Delaney J. Glass
- The University of Washington, Departments of Anthropology and Epidemiology, USA
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Bühler N. Precision public health in the making: examining the becoming of the "social" in a Swiss environmental health population-based cohort. FRONTIERS IN SOCIOLOGY 2023; 8:1219275. [PMID: 38162929 PMCID: PMC10754959 DOI: 10.3389/fsoc.2023.1219275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024]
Abstract
Expanding the concept of "precision" or "personalized" medicine, personalized health and precision public health designate the use of various kinds of data-genomic, other omics, clinical, or those produced by individuals themselves through self-tracking-to optimize health interventions benefiting the whole population. This paper draws on an ethnography of the implementation of a population-based environmental health cohort to shed light on the reconfigurations brought about by the "personalization" of public health in Switzerland. Combining human biomonitoring and molecular epidemiology, this cohort aims to advance the science of the exposome, a notion referring to the totality of exposures to which individuals are subjected over their lifecourse. Addressing the tension between holism and reductionism, this paper points to the important gap between the promissory horizon of the exposome and the realities of practices. Situations of reductionism are defined as moments of friction and negotiation between different rationales and values, exposing what makes the science of the exposome, including its material, economic, institutional, and methodological constraints, as well as its imaginaries and values. Rather than opposing holism and reductionism, I emphasize that they constitute two sides of the same coin, as they both pragmatically enable action and produce situated versions of the social. This empirical case shows how reductionism operates at the chemical, biological, and populational levels to produce public health scientific and social values. It thus contributes to contextualizing the pragmatic and strategic choices made by scientists, as well as the values they favor, in a research environment marked by the predominance of biomedicine over public health. It shows how the reductionism of the "social environment" was made for a better social integration of the cohort into the Swiss political and scientific landscape of public health. Bringing together actors involved in public health and questions of environmental exposures, this cohort can be interpreted as a biomedicalization of public health research, as well as an attempt to socialize it through the broad category of the exposome.
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Brinkmann S, Birk R, Lund PC. Is Another kind of Biologization Possible? On Biology and the psy Sciences. Integr Psychol Behav Sci 2023; 57:719-737. [PMID: 36988862 PMCID: PMC10350434 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-023-09757-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/20/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023]
Abstract
The relationship between biology and the psy disciplines (psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy) is a complex one. Many scholars have criticized how these disciplines have been biologized in the 20th century, especially since the emergence of psychopharmacology, neuroscience, and genetic research. However, biology is not just a laboratory-based science of chemical compounds, scanners, and DNA sequencing, but also a field science based on observations of organisms in their milieus. In this paper, we draw a contrast between laboratory-based biology with a focus on brains and genes, and an ecology-based biology with a focus on lives and niches. Our argument is philosophical in nature - building partly on Wittgenstein as a "philosopher of life" - to the effect that the psy sciences need not just less biologization of the former kind, but also more biologization of the latter kind to avoid a prevalent mentalism. Not least when it comes to an understanding of psychological distress, which can favorably be viewed situationally and coupled to human lives in ecological niches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Svend Brinkmann
- Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Teglgaards Plads 1, Aalborg, 9000, Denmark.
| | - Rasmus Birk
- Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Teglgaards Plads 1, Aalborg, 9000, Denmark
| | - Peter Clement Lund
- Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Teglgaards Plads 1, Aalborg, 9000, Denmark
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Hillman A, Jones IR, Quinn C, Pentecost C, Stapley S, Charlwood C, Clare L. The precariousness of living with, and caring for people with, dementia: Insights from the IDEAL programme. Soc Sci Med 2023; 331:116098. [PMID: 37480697 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2022] [Revised: 04/17/2023] [Accepted: 07/13/2023] [Indexed: 07/24/2023]
Abstract
This paper uses precarity as a framework to understand the vulnerabilities experienced by those living with or caring for someone living with dementia. Drawing on qualitative interview data from the Improving the Experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life (IDEAL) programme, we attend to our participants' reflections on how they manage the condition and the wider circumstances in which this occurs. To interrogate the utility of precarity, we focus on our participants' descriptions of needs and challenges and set these alongside both the wider contexts in which they seek or offer care (formal and informal) and the sets of values attributed to different ways of living with dementia. Building on the work of Portacolone, our analysis identified four interconnected themes: uncertainty; experiences of support and services; independence and personhood; and cumulative pressures and concerns. We develop this analysis by reviewing how our themes reflect, extend, or depart from previously identified markers of precarity and consider the specific ways in which these markers shape the lives of those living with dementia.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Hillman
- Wellcome Centre for Cultures & Environments of Health, University of Exeter, Queen's Building, Streatham Campus, EX4 4QJ, UK.
| | - I R Jones
- Institute for Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
| | - C Quinn
- Centre for Applied Dementia Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK.
| | - C Pentecost
- The Centre for Research in Ageing and Cognitive Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK.
| | - S Stapley
- The Centre for Research in Ageing and Cognitive Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK.
| | - C Charlwood
- The Centre for Research in Ageing and Cognitive Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK.
| | - L Clare
- The Centre for Research in Ageing and Cognitive Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK.
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Souleymanov R, Moore S, Star J. "The thing I'm missing the most is just being around other queer people": critical analysis of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of two-spirit, gay, bisexual, and queer men's communities in Manitoba, Canada. BMC Public Health 2023; 23:1286. [PMID: 37403027 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-023-16205-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2022] [Accepted: 06/27/2023] [Indexed: 07/06/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The purpose of this community-based study was to create and advance knowledge on the social impacts of COVID-19 on mental health of Two-Spirit, gay, bisexual, and queer (2SGBQ+) cisgender and transgender men in Manitoba, Canada. METHODS Participants (n = 20) from 2SGBQ + men's communities were recruited across Manitoba using printed flyers and social media. Individual interviews explored questions relating to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, social isolation, and service access. Data were critically examined using thematic analysis and the social theory of biopolitics. RESULTS Key themes focused on COVID-19 pandemic's negative impacts on 2SGBQ + men's mental health, loss of safe queer public spaces, and exacerbated inequities. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Manitoba, 2SGBQ + men experienced a profound loss of social connections, community spaces, and social networks which are specific to their socio-sexual identities, thereby intensifying pre-existing mental health disparities. These findings show how COVID-19 restrictions have come to reinforce the value of close personal communities, families of choice, and social networks among 2SGBQ + men in Manitoba, Canada. CONCLUSIONS This study supports the line of research on minority stress, biosociality, and place by highlighting some potential links between 2SGBQ + men's mental health and their social and physical environments. This research points to important role of safe community spaces, events, and community organizations that support 2SGBQ + men's mental health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rusty Souleymanov
- Department of Social Work, Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, 173 Dafoe Road West, Tier Building, Office 500 C, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada.
| | - Samantha Moore
- Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Jared Star
- Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
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9
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Lappé M, Hein RJ. The Temporal Politics of Placenta Epigenetics: Bodies, Environments and Time. BODY & SOCIETY 2023; 29:49-76. [PMID: 37621557 PMCID: PMC10449375 DOI: 10.1177/1357034x211068883] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
This article builds on feminist scholarship on new biologies and the body to describe the temporal politics of epigenetic research related to the human placenta. Drawing on interviews with scientists and observations at conferences and in laboratories, we argue that epigenetic research simultaneously positions placenta tissue as a way back into maternal and fetal bodies following birth, as a lens onto children's future well-being, and as a bankable resource for ongoing research. Our findings reflect how developmental models of health have helped recast the placenta as an agential organ that is uniquely responsive to environments during pregnancy and capable of embodying biological evidence about the effects of in utero experiences after birth. We develop the concept of 'recursive embodiment' to describe how placenta epigenetics is reimagining relationships between bodies and environments across developmental, epigenetic, and generational time, and the impacts this has for experiences of pregnancy and responsibilities related to children's health.
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10
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Manara S, Selma-Royo M, Huang KD, Asnicar F, Armanini F, Blanco-Miguez A, Cumbo F, Golzato D, Manghi P, Pinto F, Valles-Colomer M, Amoroso L, Corrias MV, Ponzoni M, Raffaetà R, Cabrera-Rubio R, Olcina M, Pasolli E, Collado MC, Segata N. Maternal and food microbial sources shape the infant microbiome of a rural Ethiopian population. Curr Biol 2023; 33:1939-1950.e4. [PMID: 37116481 PMCID: PMC10234599 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2022] [Revised: 02/28/2023] [Accepted: 04/05/2023] [Indexed: 04/30/2023]
Abstract
The human microbiome seeding starts at birth, when pioneer microbes are acquired mainly from the mother. Mode of delivery, antibiotic prophylaxis, and feeding method have been studied as modulators of mother-to-infant microbiome transmission, but other key influencing factors like modern westernized lifestyles with high hygienization, high-calorie diets, and urban settings, compared with non-westernized lifestyles have not been investigated yet. In this study, we explored the mother-infant sharing of characterized and uncharacterized microbiome members via strain-resolved metagenomics in a cohort of Ethiopian mothers and infants, and we compared them with four other cohorts with different lifestyles. The westernized and non-westernized newborns' microbiomes composition overlapped during the first months of life more than later in life, likely reflecting similar initial breast-milk-based diets. Ethiopian and other non-westernized infants shared a smaller fraction of the microbiome with their mothers than did most westernized populations, despite showing a higher microbiome diversity, and uncharacterized species represented a substantial fraction of those shared in the Ethiopian cohort. Moreover, we identified uncharacterized species belonging to the Selenomonadaceae and Prevotellaceae families specifically present and shared only in the Ethiopian cohort, and we showed that a locally produced fermented food, injera, can contribute to the higher diversity observed in the Ethiopian infants' gut with bacteria that are not part of the human microbiome but are acquired through fermented food consumption. Taken together, these findings highlight the fact that lifestyle can impact the gut microbiome composition not only through differences in diet, drug consumption, and environmental factors but also through its effect on mother-infant strain-sharing patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Serena Manara
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Marta Selma-Royo
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy; Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology- National Research Council (IATA-CSIC), C/ Catedrático Agustín Escardino Benlloch, 7, 46980 Paterna, Valencia, Spain
| | - Kun D Huang
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Francesco Asnicar
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Federica Armanini
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Aitor Blanco-Miguez
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Fabio Cumbo
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Davide Golzato
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Paolo Manghi
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Federica Pinto
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Mireia Valles-Colomer
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Loredana Amoroso
- Oncology Unit, IRCCS Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Via Gerolamo Gaslini 5, 16147 Genoa, Italy
| | - Maria Valeria Corrias
- Laboratory of Experimental Therapies in Oncology, IRCCS Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Via Gerolamo Gaslini 5, 16147 Genoa, Italy
| | - Mirco Ponzoni
- Laboratory of Experimental Therapies in Oncology, IRCCS Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Via Gerolamo Gaslini 5, 16147 Genoa, Italy
| | - Roberta Raffaetà
- Ca' Foscari University Venice, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage and NICHE, Malcanton Marcorà, Dorsoduro 3484/D, 30123 Venice, Italy
| | - Raul Cabrera-Rubio
- Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology- National Research Council (IATA-CSIC), C/ Catedrático Agustín Escardino Benlloch, 7, 46980 Paterna, Valencia, Spain
| | - Mari Olcina
- Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitat de València, Av. Vicent Andrés Estellés s/n, Burjassot, Valencia 46100, Spain
| | - Edoardo Pasolli
- Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Università 100, 80055 Portici, Naples, Italy.
| | - Maria Carmen Collado
- Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology- National Research Council (IATA-CSIC), C/ Catedrático Agustín Escardino Benlloch, 7, 46980 Paterna, Valencia, Spain.
| | - Nicola Segata
- Department of Cellular Computational and Integrative Biology, Via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento 38123, Italy.
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Hussey KD. Timeless spaces: Field experiments in the physiological study of circadian rhythms, 1938-1963. HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES 2023; 45:17. [PMID: 37076757 PMCID: PMC10115684 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-023-00571-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2022] [Accepted: 03/13/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
In the middle of the twentieth century, physiologists interested in human biological rhythms undertook a series of field experiments in natural spaces that they believed could closely approximate conditions of biological timelessness. With the field of rhythms research was still largely on the fringes of the life sciences, natural spaces seemed to offer unique research opportunities beyond what was available to physiologists in laboratory spaces. In particular, subterranean caves and the High Arctic became archetypal 'natural laboratories' for the study of human circadian (daily) rhythms. This paper is explores the field experiments which occurred in these 'timeless spaces'. It considers how scientists understood these natural spaces as suitably 'timeless' for studying circadian rhythms and what their experimental practices can tell us about contemporary physiological notions of biological time, especially its relationship to 'environmentality' (Formosinho et al. in Stud History Philos Sci 91:148-158, 2022). In so doing, this paper adds to a growing literature on the interrelationship of field sites by demonstrating the ways that caves and the Arctic were connected by rhythms scientists. Finally, it will explore how the use of these particular spaces were not just scientific but also political - leveraging growing Cold War anxieties about nuclear fallout and the space race to bring greater prestige and funding to the study of circadian rhythms in its early years.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristin D Hussey
- Medical Museion and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
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12
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Alač M. On body-environment continuities from a laboratory commensalism. SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 2023; 53:242-270. [PMID: 36458623 DOI: 10.1177/03063127221136556] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The article attends to everyday practices in a laboratory of neural genetics that studies olfaction, with the fruit fly as its model organism. Practices in neural genetics exhibit one of the 'post' aspects in post-genomic science - a turn to the environment. To get at how laboratory members engage body-environment continuities, I pay attention to an occasion of designing experimental chambers for an optogenetics study. As practitioners deal with the body's continuities with the world by engaging the spatial character of olfaction, their accounts exhibit qualities of feelings of immediate experience, relatable to C.S. Peirce's phenomenological category of Firstness. While these traces of Firstness inevitably manifest themselves in mixtures with the other two of Peirce's categories - namely, Secondness and Thirdness - noticing them allows for an engagement of the environment that goes beyond action and meaning. I reflect on that environment by considering the involvement of scientists' bodies in life with flies, while not forgetting my inhabitation of the laboratory space. Rather than relying on a cross-mapping of attributes known from the human sphere (intentional states or features of the human body) while managing a measurable space observed from the outside, this is an environment lived from within and with others. I conclude the article by proposing its noticing as an orientation toward ecological preoccupations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Morana Alač
- University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
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13
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Elshahat S, Moffat T, Gagnon O, Charkatli L, Gomes-Szoke ED. The relationship between diet/nutrition and the mental health of immigrants in Western societies through a holistic bio-psycho-socio-cultural lens: A scoping review. Appetite 2023; 183:106463. [PMID: 36682625 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.106463] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2022] [Revised: 12/20/2022] [Accepted: 01/16/2023] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
Epidemiological evidence suggests that diet and nutrition not only impact individuals' physical health but also shape their mental health (MH). The nutrition/diet-MH relationship may be critical among immigrants due to socioeconomic and sociocultural factors. Despite the complex nutrition/diet-MH relationship, most scholarship in this area employs a biomedical perspective. This scoping review of 63 studies deployed a holistic bio-psycho-socio-cultural framework to examine the relationship between diet/nutrition and immigrants' MH. Five automated databases (Embase, PubMed, Medline, PsycINFO and Anthropology Plus) were systematically searched for relevant articles from Western countries. A bio-psycho-socio-cultural conceptual model guided the analysis of the multi-faceted diet/nutrition-MH relationship. Consumption of fruit/vegetables, unsaturated fats, vitamin D-rich foods and whole grains was significantly positively related to MH. Reported pathways included enhanced self-esteem and ability to stay physically active. Energy-dense food consumption emanating from unhealthful dietary acculturation to the Western lifestyle was associated with poor MH through various mechanisms, including exhaustion and worry about developing non-communicable diseases. Food insecurity and related hunger were significantly positively associated with depression and anxiety among immigrants through different pathways, including family conflicts, homesickness, social exclusion, feelings of shame/stigma, and helplessness related to not affording nutritious foods that meet one's cultural dietary requirements. Ethnic food consumption appeared to mitigate MH issues and enhance immigrants' well-being. A bio-psycho-socio-cultural-informed model is needed to gain an in-depth and encompassing understanding of immigrant MH as it relates to diet/nutrition. The first iteration of such a model is presented in this review alongside an illustration of how it may be used to strengthen an analysis and understanding of the multi-faceted diet/nutrition-MH relationship amongst immigrants and inform public health professionals and dieticians/practitioners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Elshahat
- Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| | - Tina Moffat
- Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Olivia Gagnon
- Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| | - Lein Charkatli
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, & Behavior, Faculty of Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Emily D Gomes-Szoke
- Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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Perry MA, Gowland RL. Compounding vulnerabilities: Syndemics and the social determinants of disease in the past. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PALEOPATHOLOGY 2022; 39:35-49. [PMID: 36215930 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2022.09.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Revised: 09/19/2022] [Accepted: 09/25/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This article explores the theory and utility of a syndemic approach for the study of disease in the past. Syndemic principles are examined alongside other theoretical developments within bioarchaeology. Two case studies are provided to illustrate the efficacy of this approach: Tuberculosis and vitamin D deficiency in 18th and 19th century England, and malaria and helminth infections in Early Medieval England. MATERIALS Public health studies of present syndemics, in addition to published bioarchaeological, clinical and social information relating to the chosen case studies. METHODS The data from these two historical examples are revisited within a syndemic framework to draw deeper conclusions about disease clustering and heterogeneity in the past. RESULTS A syndemic framework can be applied to past contexts using clinical studies of diseases in a modern context and relevant paleopathological, archaeological, and historical data. CONCLUSIONS This approach provides a means for providing a deeper, contextualised understanding ancient diseases, and integrates well with extant theoretical tools in bioarchaeology SIGNIFICANCE: Syndemics provides scholars a deep-time perspective on diseases that still impact modern populations. LIMITATIONS Many of the variables essential for a truly syndemic approach cannot be obtained from current archaeological, bioarchaeological, or historical methods. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH More detailed and in-depth analysis of specific disease clusters within the past and the present, which draws on a comprehensive analysis of the social determinants of health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Megan A Perry
- Department of Anthropology MS 568, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA.
| | - Rebecca L Gowland
- Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
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15
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Boulicault M, Perret M, Galka J, Borsa A, Gompers A, Reiches M, Richardson S. The future of sperm: a biovariability framework for understanding global sperm count trends. HUM FERTIL 2022; 25:888-902. [PMID: 33969777 DOI: 10.1080/14647273.2021.1917778] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
The past 50 years have seen heated debate in the reproductive sciences about global trends in human sperm count. In 2017, Levine and colleagues published the largest and most methodologically rigorous meta-regression analysis to date and reported that average total sperm concentration among men from 'Western' countries has decreased by 59.3% since 1973, with no sign of halting. These results reverberated in the scientific community and in public discussions about men and masculinity in the modern world, in part because of scientists' public-facing claims about the societal implications of the decline of male fertility. We find that existing research follows a set of implicit and explicit assumptions about how to measure and interpret sperm counts, which collectively form what we term the Sperm Count Decline hypothesis (SCD). Using the study by Levine and colleagues, we identify weaknesses and inconsistencies in the SCD, and propose an alternative framework to guide research on sperm count trends: the Sperm Count Biovariability hypothesis (SCB). SCB asserts that sperm count varies within a wide range, much of which can be considered non-pathological and species-typical. Knowledge about the relationship between individual and population sperm count and life-historical and ecological factors is critical to interpreting trends in average sperm counts and their relationships to health and fertility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marion Boulicault
- Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Department of Philosophy, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
| | - Meg Perret
- Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Jonathan Galka
- Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Alex Borsa
- Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Annika Gompers
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Meredith Reiches
- Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sarah Richardson
- Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
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16
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Van Daele W. Entangled Assemblages: The Mutual Becoming of Food and More-than-Human Being. FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE 2022:1-18. [PMID: 36337168 PMCID: PMC9628334 DOI: 10.1007/s10699-022-09858-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/30/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Food and life are intimately entangled. To grasp the underlying complexity of this seemingly simple statement, this article first introduces the approach to food/eating as an assemblage enacted by various heterogeneous components, and further develops it by engaging with actor network theory and material semiotics. Thereafter the focus turns to 'entanglement', as inspired by quantum physics, to elicit the basic dynamics of the entanglement of food and more-than-human beings, conceived of as involving mutual and differential becomings within and among assemblages. The article illustrates these entangled becomings by drawing upon examples from Sri Lanka, which in an intercultural philosophical fashion serve to establish an articulation (in the sense of a connection) between the proposed abstract approach to food and some basic premises of Buddhism and Ayurveda, a South Asian health system. Overall, the article crafts a conceptual toolbox and performs ontological groundwork wherein food and human beings as entangled assemblages provide a productive, refined, and sensitive research apparatus for the intimate study of more-than-human life and organization while also spurring novel theorizations through food/eating.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wim Van Daele
- Department of Nutrition and Public Health, University of Agder, Postbox 422, 4604 Kristiansand, Norway
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17
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Indentured clinical labor? An indigenist standpoint view of ‘forced surrogacy’ and reproductive governance in India. BIOSOCIETIES 2022. [DOI: 10.1057/s41292-022-00284-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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18
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Baines K. “It's normal to admit you're not okay”: New York City college students shaping mental health through journaling. SSM - MENTAL HEALTH 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmmh.2022.100119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
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19
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Berghs M. Let's Get Back to Normal? COVID-19 and the Logic of Cure. FRONTIERS IN SOCIOLOGY 2022; 7:782582. [PMID: 35495570 PMCID: PMC9039617 DOI: 10.3389/fsoc.2022.782582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 03/17/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has inversed certainties of absolutes of cure in everyday life but paradoxically this has occurred during a time when novel scientific advancements seem to herald a new frontier of cures for rare diseases, chronic conditions, disabilities and viruses that were previously incurable. In this paper, I illustrate the development of a logic of cure by first of all noting a lacuna in the medical sociological and anthropological literature, where although a lot of empirical research and theoretical work to understand cure has been undertaken, there has been no sociology or anthropology of cure. Using three case studies, I examine what they reveal about the logic of cure. Firstly, I argue that there is a development of a bioethics of cure in reactions of disability community and disabled people to care as cure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second case-study focuses on understanding limitations of vaccines and how people react against such indeterminancies of loss of absolutes of cure. Lastly, the final case study describes how while there are cures, for example, for rare genetic conditions, they are often initially curated with long-term cost-benefit analysis for the Global North. In conclusion, it is found that many of the developments within sociology and anthropology are missing from a logic of cure and that a new theory of cure has to develop.
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20
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Mattison SM, Hare D, MacLaren NG, Reynolds AZ, Sum CY, Liu R, Shenk MK, Blumenfield T, Su M, Li H, Wander K. Context Specificity of “Market Integration” among the Matrilineal Mosuo of Southwest China. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1086/719266] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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21
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Bunkley EN. Interembodiment, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Health. Med Anthropol Q 2022; 36:256-271. [DOI: 10.1111/maq.12689] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2021] [Revised: 11/05/2021] [Accepted: 11/24/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Emma Nelson Bunkley
- Public Health Sciences Division Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
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22
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Abarca Brown C, Szabzon F, Bruhn L, Ravelli Cabrini D, Miranda E, Gnoatto J, de Vries Albertin P, Santana GL, Andrade LH. (Re) thinking urban mental health from the periphery of São Paulo in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Int Rev Psychiatry 2022; 34:78-88. [PMID: 35584018 DOI: 10.1080/09540261.2022.2027349] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Urban mental health studies traditionally search for causal relationships between elements of the city and the prevalence of mental disorders. This paper discusses the importance of (re)thinking the 'lived urban experience' from the perspective of city residents about how the immediate environment affects their mental health and how people cope with inequalities. A participatory-action research was implemented in a peripheral area of São Paulo - Brazil, in which volunteers from the territory made phone calls to neighbours to provide emotional support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Weekly supervision meetings were held between volunteers and researchers to discuss the experiences shared by community counterparts. Narratives have shown that the lived experience in the city is mediated by multiple layers of 'urban insecurities'. These difficulties pressured people to organise and resist in face of pervasive inequalities as well as to respond to unfolding experiences of social suffering. We highlight the potential of participatory methodologies to observe the ways in which subjects face their structural issues and the suffering that emerge in these circumstances. The understanding of how these conflicts are lived at a subjective level can support studies that are wondering about the mechanisms of how social conflicts 'get under the skin'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cristobal Abarca Brown
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Felipe Szabzon
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Lenora Bruhn
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Daniela Ravelli Cabrini
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Elisangela Miranda
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Jacqueline Gnoatto
- Human Rights Centre Pablo Gonzales Olalla (Centro de Direitos Humanos Pablo Gonzales Olalla), São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Paula de Vries Albertin
- Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Geilson Lima Santana
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Laura Helena Andrade
- Section of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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23
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Formosinho J, Bencard A, Whiteley L. Environmentality in biomedicine: microbiome research and the perspectival body. STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 2022; 91:148-158. [PMID: 34922182 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.11.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Revised: 10/18/2021] [Accepted: 11/07/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Microbiome research shows that human health is foundationally intertwined with the ecology of microbial communities living on and in our bodies. This challenges the categorical separation of organisms from environments that has been central to biomedicine, and questions the boundaries between them. Biomedicine is left with an empirical problem: how to understand causal pathways between host health, microbiota and environment? We propose a conceptual tool - environmentality - to think through this problem. Environmentality is the state or quality of being an environment for something else in a particular context: a fully perspectival proposition. Its power lies partly in what Isabelle Stengers has called the efficacy of the word itself, contrasting the dominant sense of the word environment as something both external and fixed. Through three case studies, we argue that environmentality can help think about the causality of microbiota vis-a-vis host health in a processual, relational and situated manner, across scales and temporalities. We situate this intervention within historical trajectories of thought in biomedicine, focusing on the challenge microbiome research poses to an aperspectival body. We argue that addressing entanglements between microbial and human lives requires that the environment is brought into the clinic, thus shortening the conceptual gap between medicine and public health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana Formosinho
- Medical Museion, Department of Public Health and Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
| | - Adam Bencard
- Medical Museion, Department of Public Health and Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Louise Whiteley
- Medical Museion, Department of Public Health and Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen, Denmark
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24
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Lappé M, Jeffries Hein R. You Are What Your Mother Endured: Intergenerational Epigenetics, Early Caregiving, and the Temporal Embedding of Adversity. Med Anthropol Q 2022; 35:458-475. [PMID: 35066926 DOI: 10.1111/maq.12683] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2020] [Revised: 08/04/2021] [Accepted: 08/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martine Lappé
- Social Sciences Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
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25
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Haraoui LP. Networked collective microbiomes and the rise of subcellular 'units of life'. Trends Microbiol 2021; 30:112-119. [PMID: 34696928 DOI: 10.1016/j.tim.2021.09.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Revised: 09/21/2021] [Accepted: 09/27/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Microbiomes are generally conceived of as one element of a pair - their partner being the habitat they occupy. I call this common scientific practice 'pair-thinking'. Research into antimicrobial resistance and its underlying anthropogenic drivers highlights the growing footprint occupied by mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Furthermore, these MGEs are known to circulate widely between microbiomes. Using a pluralistic framework anchored within a processual microbial ontology, these observations point to a reframing of microbiomes as networked and collective, thus challenging pair-thinking. Such a shift has implications for the future of microbiome research, from conceptual and methodological perspectives, and exposes the impacts of anthropogenic forces on the evolution of microbiomes and the functions they carry out.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louis-Patrick Haraoui
- Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.
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26
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Abstract
AbstractThis 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.
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27
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Pickersgill M. Negotiating Novelty: Constructing the Novel within Scientific Accounts of Epigenetics. SOCIOLOGY 2021; 55:600-618. [PMID: 34163091 PMCID: PMC8188992 DOI: 10.1177/0038038520954752] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Epigenetics is regarded by many as a compelling domain of biomedicine. The purported novelty of epigenetics has begun to have various societal ramifications, particularly in relation to processes of responsibilisation. Within sociology, it has stimulated hopeful debate about conceptual rapprochements between the biomedical and social sciences. This article is concerned with how novelty is socially produced and negotiated. The article engages directly with scientists' talk and writings about epigenetics (as process and field of study). I aim to advance an explicitly sociological analysis about the novelty of epigenetics that underscores its social production rather than an account which participates in its reification. I attend to definitional skirmishes, comparisons with genetics, excitement and intrigue, and considerations of the ethical dimensions of epigenetics. Any assertions that epigenetics is exciting or important should not inadvertently elide reflexive consideration of how such characterisations might be part of the machinery by which they become real.
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28
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Brewis A, Wutich A. EmilyMendenhallRethinking diabetes: Entanglements with trauma, poverty, and
HIV
. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London. 2019. Am J Hum Biol 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra Brewis
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University Tempe Arizona USA
| | - Amber Wutich
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University Tempe Arizona USA
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29
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Choksey L. Environmental racialisation and poetics of influence in the postgenomic era: fire, soil, spirit. MEDICAL HUMANITIES 2021; 47:medhum-2020-012061. [PMID: 33879528 PMCID: PMC8223650 DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2020-012061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/09/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
This article considers processes of environmental racialisation in the postgenomic era through their politics of difference and poetics of influence. Subfields like epigenetics promise to account for a plurality of possible influences on health outcomes. While this appears to present possibilities for historical reparation to communities whose epigenomes may have been chronically altered by histories of violence and trauma, the prevailing trend has been to compound processes of racialisation in the reproduction of good/bad environments. The postgenomic era has promised an epistemological transformation of ideas and values of human life, but its practices, technologies and ideology have so far prevented this. Epigenetics, rather, reproduces biomedical exclusions through imaginaries of embodied contexts, methods of occlusion and hypervisibility, and assignations of delay and deviance. This is more complex than both genetic reductionism and environmental racism: studies on epigenetics reveal a poetics of influence at work under liberal humanism complicit in the creation of death-worlds for racialised populations. Other experiments with life are possible and unfolding: Jay Bernard's poem 'Chemical', set in the aftermath of London's Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, unmoors its bodies from material environment, offering a spectral configuration of collective life. This configuration involves negotiating with the fixing of time and space on which genomic imaginaries depend.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lara Choksey
- Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
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30
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Malcolm R. “There’s No Constant”: Oxytocin, Cortisol, and Balanced Proportionality in Hormonal Models of Autism. Med Anthropol 2021; 40:375-388. [DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2021.1894558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Roslyn Malcolm
- Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, UK
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31
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Lock M, Argentieri MA, Shields AE. The contribution of ethnography to epigenomics research: toward a new bio-ethnography for addressing health disparities. Epigenomics 2021; 13:1771-1786. [PMID: 33653089 DOI: 10.2217/epi-2020-0009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
This article describes ethnography as a research method and outlines how it excels in capturing the salient experiences of individuals among diverse communities in their own words. We argue that the integration of ethnographic findings into epigenomics will significantly improve disparities-focused study designs within environmental epigenomics by identifying and contextualizing the most salient dimensions of the 'environment' that are affecting local communities. Reciprocally, epigenetic findings can enhance anthropological understanding of human biological variation and embodiment. We introduce the term bio-ethnography to refer to research designs that integrate both of these methodologies into a single research project. Emphasis is given in this article, through the use of case studies, to socially disadvantaged communities that are often underrepresented in scientific literature. The paper concludes with preliminary recommendations for how ethnographic methods can be integrated into epigenomics research designs in order to elucidate the manner in which disadvantage translates into disparities in the burden of illness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret Lock
- Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal H3A 1X1, Canada
| | - M Austin Argentieri
- School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PE, UK.,Harvard/MGH Center on Genomics, Vulnerable Populations, and Health Disparities, Mongan Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
| | - Alexandra E Shields
- Harvard/MGH Center on Genomics, Vulnerable Populations, and Health Disparities, Mongan Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.,Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
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32
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Berghs M. Who Gets Cured? COVID-19 and Developing a Critical Medical Sociology and Anthropology of Cure. FRONTIERS IN SOCIOLOGY 2021; 5:613548. [PMID: 33869531 PMCID: PMC8022653 DOI: 10.3389/fsoc.2020.613548] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2020] [Accepted: 12/11/2020] [Indexed: 05/05/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Maria Berghs
- Allied Health Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom
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Abstract
AbstractCTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is caused by repetitive head trauma and detected by a distinctive stain for a protein called ‘tau’ in autopsied brain tissue. While the number of diagnosed patients is only in the hundreds, the cultural footprint of the disease in North America is huge, both because those diagnosed are often celebrity-athletes and because millions of children, adolescents and young men and women play collision sports like football and hockey. We argue that the widespread attention to CTE provides a useful wedge to crack open another, heretofore neglected public health concern: repetitive acts of violence in and around hypermasculine sports create subjects whose brains—and characters—are materially shaped by that violence. Brains change materially when delivering blows as well as receiving them, when participating in degrading hazing rituals as victim or assailant, when belittled or assaulted by a coach, when approaching an upcoming game riddled with fear. We adopt a biosocial model of the brain’s becoming to intervene in a linear discourse around CTE that medicalizes and oversimplifies violence, a story that prematurely dissects one slice of the problem from a noxious whole.
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Anastario M, Arias Rodas MG, Escobar Arteaga MA, Villanueva C, Chacón Serrano F, Ferdowsian H. Genitourinary Systems Entangled with Shifting Environments in a Salvadoran Subsistence Farming Community. Med Anthropol Q 2020; 35:246-265. [PMID: 33035383 DOI: 10.1111/maq.12616] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2020] [Revised: 09/04/2020] [Accepted: 09/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Diseases of the genitourinary system are the leading cause of hospital deaths in El Salvador, and chronic kidney disease of unknown origin has been gaining attention as a public health problem among farmers in particular. Epidemiological studies point, in part, to environmental risk factors, which have shifted over time with the deployment of modern agricultural science and ongoing climate change. We examined how diseases of the genitourinary system were situated at several margins of an epidemic in one rural Salvadoran municipality where these environmental and epidemiological changes are occurring, albeit relatively slow. By using this approach to study diseases of the genitourinary system, we illustrate one way in which shifting human/environment entanglements can be experimentally "known" in the context of human diseases associated with them. Our approach offers a unique perspective in thinking with ethnographic data to compliment ongoing epidemiological investigations of kidney disease in El Salvador.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mike Anastario
- Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work, Florida International University
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35
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Blom DE, Knudson KJ. Paleopathology and children in the Andes: Local/situated biologies and future directions. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PALEOPATHOLOGY 2020; 29:65-75. [PMID: 31585823 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2019.08.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2019] [Revised: 07/31/2019] [Accepted: 08/10/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
In the decades since Verano (1997) published his foundational piece on Andean paleopathology, scholars have recognized the importance of the bioarchaeology of childhood. Yet, scholarship on ancient childhood in the Andes deemphasizes paleopathology. Nonadult paleopathological data are often employed in large-scale, biocultural studies focused on environmental or political adaptations; however, they can also elucidate children's individual lived experiences and roles in society. To generate culturally-meaningful paleopathological data, we must take a contextualized approach to our analyses and interpretations. Disparate use of chronological age in published datasets makes synthesis across studies problematic, and ethnohistorical and ethnographic data on Andean children demonstrate that developmental age categories, rather than chronological age ranges, are most appropriate. Further, paleopathological data can best inform our investigations when they are combined with related datasets such as those on sex, diet, activity, and mobility. With that in mind, we use the theoretical framework of "local biologies" (and the related "situated biologies"), where biology is viewed as heavily contingent on culturally-specific beliefs and practices and local physical, sociocultural, and political environments (Lock, 1993, 2001; Niewöhner and Lock, 2018). Local biologies approaches can enrich social bioarchaeology and paleopathology to by specifically situating children and their experiences within the ancient Andean world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Deborah E Blom
- University of Vermont, Department of Anthropology, United States.
| | - Kelly J Knudson
- Arizona State University, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, United States
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Streinzer A, Poppinga A, Zieringer C, Wanka A, Marx G. Familial Intimacy and the ‘Thing’ between Us. ANTHROPOLOGY IN ACTION 2020. [DOI: 10.3167/aia.2020.270210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
During the government-imposed contact restrictions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, older adults feared that they may no longer be able to experience physical contact with family members. They were, however, given hope by a ‘cuddle curtain’, a device that promised to enable familial intimacy while blocking the exposure of older bodies to the coronavirus. Our research team traced how one such artefact was used in nursing homes in Switzerland. Here, we discuss its cultural biography to explore notions of intimacy by relating discussions about the curtain to anthropological discussions about entanglement and detachment. We contrast positive associations between the curtain and familial intimacy with regulations surrounding body fluid barriers in sex work, in order to relate the ‘thing’ to the larger context within which it circulates.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Almut Poppinga
- Institute for Social Research, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
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38
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39
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40
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Circularity, psychiatry & biomarkers: The operationalisation of Alzheimer's & stress in research. Soc Sci Med 2019; 239:112553. [DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112553] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2019] [Revised: 09/02/2019] [Accepted: 09/12/2019] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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41
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Latimer J, Hillman A. Biomarkers and brains: situating dementia in the laboratory and in the memory clinic. NEW GENETICS AND SOCIETY 2019; 39:80-100. [PMID: 32256201 PMCID: PMC7077362 DOI: 10.1080/14636778.2019.1652804] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2018] [Accepted: 07/31/2019] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
This paper provides a comparison of how genetic biomarkers are used (or not) in three contexts: clinic-based diagnostic work with people; lab-based research on mice and their marbles; and lab-based research on thrashing nematodes. For all the worldwide drive to find biomarkers that can be used in the detection of early, presymptomatic dementia, there is little research on how or when the association between biomarkers and a definitive disease are being made to "hold." First, we show the disjuncture between the animal modeling that underpins laboratory attempts to stabilize genetic biomarkers and the paradigms that inform clinical diagnosis. Secondly, we develop this theme to show how in our third site, an epigenetics "worm" laboratory, neurodegenerative changes are explored as located in specific gene-environment interactions over time. We speculate whether such an enactment brings us closer to a notion of "situated biology," to undercut possibilities of making genetic biomarkers of preclinical dementia hold.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joanna Latimer
- Science & Technology Studies Unit, Sociology, University of York, York, UK
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42
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Abstract
Since the concept of 'local biologies' was proposed in the 1990s, it has been used to examine biosocial processes that transform human bodies in similar and different ways around the globe. This paper explores understandings of biosocial differentiation and convergence in the case of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the Czech Republic. Specifically, it examines how Czech TCM practitioners view TCM as universally applicable while fine-tuning it to situated biosocial conditions, experimenting with the compatibilities of various human and plant bodies as part of their generalised, clinical practice. Drawing upon ethnographic research among TCM practitioners in the Czech Republic, it suggests that in addition to the individualization of TCM therapeutics to suit particular patients, Czech TCM is characterised by collective particularization, shaped by local concerns over ethnic, environmental and cultural differences. By looking critically at TCM practitioners' sensitivities to localised biological similarities and differences it aims to contribute to understandings of the expansion of TCM in Central Europe, as well as more broadly to current social science debates over the risks and opportunities inherent in abandoning the assumption of a universal human body and biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tereza Stöckelová
- Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
| | - Susanna Trnka
- Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.,Anthropology Programme, School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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Adams V, Behague D, Caduff C, Löwy I, Ortega F. Re-imagining global health through social medicine. Glob Public Health 2019; 14:1383-1400. [PMID: 30887910 DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2019.1587639] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
The conceptual and practical work done by social medicine and global health have often overlapped. In this paper, we argue that new efforts to apprehend 'the social' in social medicine offer important insights to global health along five lines of critical analysis: (1) reconfigurations of the state and new forms of political activism, (2) philanthrocapitalism and the economisation of life, (3) The economy of attention, (4) anthropogenic climate change, and (5) the geopolitics of North and South.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vincanne Adams
- Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine, University of California , San Francisco, CA , USA
| | - Dominique Behague
- Medicine, Health and Society, Vanderbilt University , Nashville, TN , USA.,Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Kings College London , London , UK
| | - Carlo Caduff
- Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Kings College London , London , UK
| | - Ilana Löwy
- CERMES 3 (INSERM, CNRS, EHESS), University Paris , Paris , France
| | - Francisco Ortega
- Instituto de Medicina Social, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro , Rio de Janeiro , Brasil
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Lappé M. The paradox of care in behavioral epigenetics: Constructing early-life adversity in the lab. BIOSOCIETIES 2018; 13:698-714. [PMID: 31156717 PMCID: PMC6540972 DOI: 10.1057/s41292-017-0090-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Many epigenetic studies focus on how stress, trauma, and care become molecularly embodied, affect gene expression without changing DNA sequence, and produce changes that influence the health and behavior of individuals, their offspring, and future generations. This article describes how care has become central in research on the epigenetic effects of early-life adversity. My analysis draws on two years of ethnographic research in a behavioral epigenetics laboratory in the United States. Building on traditions in feminist theory and the sociology of science, I document how care is enacted with research samples, experimental protocols, and behavioral endpoints in experiments with model organisms. My findings point to tensions between researchers' care for the data and their measurement of adversity as a discrete variable in the form of maternal interaction, neglect, and abuse. I argue that these tensions suggest a "paradox of care" that is actively shaping how epigenetic knowledge is produced and its impacts in society. My analysis shows how decisions in the lab are shaping new understandings of how early-life experiences influence health, with significant impacts on our expectations of mothers and pregnant women. This study suggests that the more complex explanations of health and development promised by epigenetics are simultaneously constructed and constrained by caring practices in the laboratory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martine Lappé
- Columbia University Center for Research on Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic, and Behavioral Genetics
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Annandale E, Wiklund M, Hammarström A. Theorising women's health and health inequalities: shaping processes of the 'gender-biology nexus'. Glob Health Action 2018; 11:1669353. [PMID: 31587620 PMCID: PMC6792043 DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2019.1669353] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Since the theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools we employ shape research outcomes by guiding research pathways, it is important that we subject them to ongoing critical reflection. A thoroughgoing analysis of the global production of women's health inequality calls for a comprehensive theorization of how social relations of gender and the biological body mutually interact in local contexts in a nexus with women's health. However, to date, the predominant concern of research has been to identify the biological effects of social relations of gender on the body, to the relative neglect of the co-constitutive role that these biological changes themselves may play in ongoing cycles of gendered health oppressions. Drawing on feminist and gender theoretical approaches, and with the health of women and girls as our focus, we seek to extend our understanding of this recursive process by discussing what we call the 'shaping processes' of the 'gender-biology nexus' which call attention to not only the 'gender-shaping of biology' but also the 'biologic-shaping of gender'. We consider female genital mutilation/cutting as an illustration of this process and conclude by proposing that a framework which attends to both the 'gender-shaping of biology' and the 'biologic-shaping of gender' as interweaving processes provides a fruitful approach to theorising the wider health inequalities experienced by women and girls.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ellen Annandale
- Department of Sociology, University of York , York , England
| | - Maria Wiklund
- Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilition, Physiotherapy, Umeå University , Umeå , Sweden
| | - Anne Hammarström
- Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet , Stockholm , Sweden.,The Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University , Stockholm , Sweden
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46
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Situating the biosocial: Empirical engagements with environmental epigenetics from the lab to the clinic. BIOSOCIETIES 2018. [DOI: 10.1057/s41292-017-0094-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
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47
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Lock M. Mutable environments and permeable human bodies★. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/1467-9655.12855] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Margaret Lock
- Department of Social Studies of Medicine; McGill University; 3647 Peel Street Montréal, Québéc H3A 1X1 Canada
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