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Keaney J, Byrne H, Warin M, Kowal E. Refusing epigenetics: indigeneity and the colonial politics of trauma. HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES 2023; 46:1. [PMID: 38110801 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-023-00596-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2023] [Accepted: 10/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/20/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jaya Keaney
- School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
| | - Henrietta Byrne
- School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
| | - Megan Warin
- School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
| | - Emma Kowal
- Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
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Abstract
Understanding language as a social action draws attention to the ways in which fat stigmatizing discourses do social harm. Drawing on interviews and experiences situated in Osaka, Japan and north Georgia, US, this paper looks closely at the ways in which fat stigma is expressed across the two sites, both blatantly and through more subtle language use. We identified four key themes in people's narratives around localized ideas about fatness. These themes are: (1) expressed pity or concern for fat people; (2) reported experiences of indirect stigma in public settings; (3) reported experiences of direct stigma in private settings; and (4) robust and repeated associations between fat and other conditions that had locally relevant negative connotations in each site. We further identify the expressed concern and pity articulated in the first theme as a form of cloaked, "dressed up" stigma and as such, we argue that it enacts social harm, especially when it co-occurs with more blatant forms of stigma. Linguistic niceties around caring actually, at least in these contexts, reify symbolic connections between fat bodies and their social failure.
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Meloni M, Moll T, Issaka A, Kuzawa CW. A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era. Am J Hum Biol 2022; 34:e23742. [PMID: 35275433 PMCID: PMC9286859 DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23742] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Revised: 02/01/2022] [Accepted: 02/20/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maurizio Meloni
- Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and GlobalisationDeakin University, Geelong Waurn Ponds CampusWaurn PondsVictoriaAustralia
| | - Tessa Moll
- Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and GlobalisationDeakin University, Geelong Waurn Ponds CampusWaurn PondsVictoriaAustralia
- School of Public Health, Faculty of Health SciencesUniversity of the WitwatersrandJohannesburgSouth Africa
| | - Ayuba Issaka
- School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of HealthDeakin University, Geelong Waurn Ponds CampusWaurn PondsVictoriaAustralia
| | - Christopher W. Kuzawa
- Department of Anthropology and Institute for Policy ResearchNorthwestern UniversityEvanstonIllinoisUSA
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Huerne K, Palmour N, Wu AR, Beck S, Berner A, Siebert R, Joly Y. Auditing the Editor: A Review of Key Translational Issues in Epigenetic Editing. CRISPR J 2022; 5:203-212. [PMID: 35325565 DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2021.0094] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Currently, most advances in site-specific epigenetic editing for human use are concentrated in basic research, yet, there is considerable interest to translate this technology beyond the bench. This review highlights recent developments with epigenetic editing technology in comparison with the canonical CRISPR-Cas genome editing, as well as the epistemic and ethical considerations with preemptive translation of epigenetic editing into clinical or commercial use in humans. Key considerations in safety, equity, and access to epigenetic editing are highlighted, with a spotlight on the ethical, legal, and social issues of this technology in the context of global health equity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine Huerne
- Centre of Genomics and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
| | - Nicole Palmour
- Centre of Genomics and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
| | - Angela Ruohao Wu
- Division of Life Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong S.A.R, China.,Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong S.A.R, China
| | - Stephan Beck
- University College London (UCL) Cancer Institute, London, United Kingdom
| | - Alison Berner
- Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), London, United Kingdom
| | - Reiner Siebert
- Institute of Human Genetics, Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
| | - Yann Joly
- Centre of Genomics and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
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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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Warin M. Commentary: Flexible Kinship. Med Anthropol Q 2022; 35:553-558. [PMID: 35066928 DOI: 10.1111/maq.12692] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Megan Warin
- Sociology, Criminology and Gender Studies, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
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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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Cuj M, Grabinsky L, Yates-Doerr E. Cultures of Nutrition: Classification, Food Policy, and Health. Med Anthropol 2020; 40:79-97. [PMID: 33275461 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2020.1826475] [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] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Nutrition policymakers frequently treat their knowledge of nutrition as acultural and universal. We analyze food guidelines in Mexico and Guatemala to draw attention to embedded, but often unrecognized, cultural values of standardization and individual responsibility. We suggest that nutrition policy would be improved by attending to the cultural values within nutrition science, and that nutrition guidelines should attend not only to other people's cultures but to what we are calling "cultures of nutrition." We conclude by offering an example of an adaptive approach to policy-making that may be useful for handling situations where many different cultures of nutrition collide.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miguel Cuj
- Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, United States
| | - Lisa Grabinsky
- School of Language, Culture, and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, United States
| | - Emily Yates-Doerr
- Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Hardon A, Smith-Morris C. Reconfiguring Metabolism: Critical Ethnographies of Obesity and Diabetes. Med Anthropol 2019; 38:777-780. [PMID: 31815568 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2019.1681993] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Anita Hardon
- Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Saldaña Tejeda A. Global divisions of health; bioethical principles, practices and regulations on human genome editing and stem cell research in Latin America. BIONATURA 2019. [DOI: 10.21931/rb/2019.04.03.2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent genetic technologies have uncovered the urgent need for global governance of health that can guarantee an ethical consensus on human genome editing and stem cell research. Although the majority of gene-transfer trials have been located in the Americas and Europe, the regulation of human somatic cell genome editing is generally limited in Latin America and largely informed by ethical concerns about genetically modified plants and animals, biopiracy, biosecurity, and use of stem cells for clinical care. Few jurisdictions in the region (i.e., Chile, Panama, Ecuador, and Colombia) have explicitly addressed somatic genome editing. Jurisdictions often address concerns regarding the use of new biotechnologies (i.e., CRISPR-Cas9) for human “enhancement” purposes rather than the prevention or cure of serious medical conditions 1.
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Pentecost M, Ross F. The First Thousand Days: Motherhood, Scientific Knowledge, and Local Histories. Med Anthropol 2019; 38:747-761. [PMID: 30945948 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2019.1590825] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle Pentecost
- Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.,Department of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
| | - Fiona Ross
- Department of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
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