Somatographic Investigations Across Levels of Complexity

Beck, Stefan; Niewöhner, Jörg

doi:10.1017/s1745855206050113

Cited by 36 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The structuralist stance that emanates from their writing and their discussions is a very pragmatic stance that is based not on any particularly well-informed social theory, but on the need to work with some form of indicators in their study designs. Hence, the implicit structuralist approach has most to do with the 'pragmatic reductionism' so widespread in the laboratory sciences (Beck and Niewöhner, 2006). And it has to do with the personal interest that many of the lab members take in better understanding the effects of social inequality on health -an issue most commonly problematised in structuralist terms in popular scientific and public discourse.…”

Section: The Importance Of Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu

Niewöhner¹

2011

BioSocieties

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156

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Abstract:The molecular biological field of epigenetics has recently attracted attention not only in biology, but also in the broader scientific community and the popular press. Commentators paint a very heterogeneous picture with some arguing that epigenetics is nothing but another aspect of gene regulation, and others enthusiastically proclaiming a paradigmatic shift in developmental biology. This article analyses a particular approach to environmental epigenetics -a subfield of epigenetics that is central to the recent excitement. The focus lies on an ethnographic analysis of research practices that enable a particular lab group to study the impact of different levels of context, for example, changes in the social and material environment, on epigenetic modification and thus phenotypic variation. The article argues that changes in the practice of doing epigenetic biology contribute to a molecularisation of biography and milieu, suggest the configuration of somatic sociality and produce a different concept of the body: the embedded body. This article concludes with a brief discussion of customary biology as a potential new research agenda at the interface of material and social inquiry.

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Section: The Importance Of Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu

Niewöhner¹

2011

BioSocieties

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258

156

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“…Those ongoing interactions reflect a clear distinction between the studies I followed and one-time tissue samples procured in genomic studies or shared anonymously by databanks. My ongoing research on MARBLES therefore provided a unique window onto the emergent relationships, motivations and circulations of knowledge among study staff, mothers, children, Principal Investigators, and larger scientific and autism communities (see Beck and Niewöhner, 2006;Monahan and Fisher, 2010;Niewöhner, 2011;Pickersgill, 2012). I analyzed all data, including interview transcripts, field notes and documents, using the principles of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967;Strauss, 1987;Strauss and Corbin, 1998;Charmaz, 2006) and situational analysis (Clarke, 2005).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking care: Anticipation, extraction and the politics of temporality in autism science

Lappé

2014

BioSocieties

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Research on autism has increased significantly over the past several decades. This upsurge parallels the steep rise in autism diagnoses. Together, these conditions have increased the number of people occupying the social role of research participants, including investigators, analysts and subjects. Simultaneously, addressing scientific questions about autism now involves new research efforts including prospective enriched-risk cohort studies exploring the environmental and genetic causes of autism during pregnancy and early child development. Rather than one-time donations, these studies require extended commitments on the part of all those involved in the research. This article draws on ethnographic observations of research practices and interviews with investigators, study staff and participants to examine the emergent relationships between research and care in this area of autism science. I introduce the notion of 'taking care' to describe the forms of anticipatory labor and mutual extraction involved in longitudinal research. Through tracing three modes of taking care across practices of study design, data collection and participation, I argue that research and care become intimately intertwined and mutually constructed during the research process. These findings reflect how processes of taking and giving are constitutive of research participation for all those engaged in the research enterprise. This article considers the relationships between these practices and new forms of community and sociality related to biomedical science.

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“…It is as digital representations of the environmental, social or biographical aspects of 'nurture' that epigenomic profiles enable the molecular, and at times also experimentally tractable, understanding of living beings. Yet, while molecularization has already sparked an important debate in the social sciences over the last decade (Shostak, 2005;Beck and Niewöhner, 2006;Rose, 2007;Nowotny and Testa, 2011), epigenetics seems to herald a new stage that entails "a highly selective scanning of the socio-material environment in order to make snippets of it available for experimental work at the molecular level. The sociomaterial environment and increasingly everyday life itself is framed and ordered in terms of its effect on molecular processes in the body" (Landecker, 2011;see also Niewöhner, 2011).…”

Section: Pathway 3: Paradoxes Of Somatic Materialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scrutinizing the Epigenetics Revolution

Meloni¹,

Testa²

2018

The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

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Epigenetics is one of the most rapidly expanding fields in the life sciences. Its rise is frequently framed as a revolutionary turn that heralds a new epoch both for gene-based epistemology and for the wider discourse on life that pervades knowledge-intensive societies of the molecular age. The fundamentals of this revolution remain however to be scrutinized, and indeed the very contours of what counts as 'epigenetic' are often blurred. This is reflected also in the mounting discourse on the societal implications of epigenetics, in which vast expectations coexist with significant uncertainty about what aspects of this science are most relevant for politics or policy alike. This is therefore a suitable time to reflect on the directions that social theory could most productively take in the scrutiny of this revolution. Here we take this opportunity in both its scholarly and normative dimension, that is, proposing a roadmap for social theorizing on epigenetics that does not shy away from, and indeed hopefully guides, the framing of its most socially relevant outputs. To this end, we start with an epistemological reappraisal of epigenetic discourse that valorizes the blurring of meanings as a critical asset for the field and privileged analytical entry point. We then propose three paths of investigation. The first looks at the structuring elements of controversies and visions around epigenetics. The second probes the mutual constitution between the epigenetic reordering of living phenomena and the normative settlements that orient individual and collective responsibilities. The third highlights the material import of epigenetics and the molecularization of culture that it mediates. We suggest that these complementary strands provide both an epistemically and socially self-reflective framework to advance the study of epigenetics as a molecular juncture between nature and nurture and thus as the new critical frontier in the social studies of the life sciences.

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Somatographic Investigations Across Levels of Complexity

Cited by 36 publications

References 33 publications

Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu

Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu

Taking care: Anticipation, extraction and the politics of temporality in autism science

Scrutinizing the Epigenetics Revolution

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