Dienstag, 04. Juli 2023, 17:00 - 18:30 iCal
The Mirage of Biosocial Complexity, L. Chiapperino
Critique and Collaboration Around the Tools of Epigenetics
(Participation is possible on-site and online.)
Vienna Bio Center, IMBA lecture hall
Dr.-Bohr-Gasse 3, 1030 Vienna
Vortrag
This talk challenges a key tacit assumption about the policy potential of epigenetics, namely, that it has great value for action on the health consequences of environmental exposures and the embodiment of inequalities. Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation get increasing attention as biological correlates of social conditions, lifestyles and/or environmental exposures. Yet, the actionability of this information is not clear. Some have criticised that epigenetics would bolster the idea that individuals are responsible for their exposure to hazardous environments. Others have questioned the added value of this information to existing policy claims addressing health and environmental inequalities. Interindividual epigenetic variation, these scholars argued, can hardly be connected to the social or environmental processes that produced it.
Building upon six years of fieldwork, my talk explores the technical and experimental work invested into connecting structural policy-level interventions with epigenetic knowledge of exposure-related disorders. The connections between social justice and epigenetics rest upon a distinct kind of actors’ work “complexifying” the experimental designs and knowledge claims of this research. Some of the field’s epistemic norms and values are used for this purpose, including those relating to: a) the multiple social-biological transitions shaping the epigenome; b) the epigenetics of culture and ethnicity; c) the effectiveness and viability of social and environmental interventions into the epigenome. Is an epigenetics of health and environmental injustices just a mirage, or a concrete opportunity for future public health policymaking?
Zur Webseite der Veranstaltung
Veranstalter
CeSCoS, ÖPPM, Open Science, Karl Landsteiner University
Kontakt
Sonja Maria Prendinger
Research Platform Governance of Digital Practices
+43-1-4277-288 01
sonja.prendinger@univie.ac.at
Erstellt am Donnerstag, 15. Juni 2023, 10:31
Letzte Änderung am Montag, 26. Juni 2023, 09:37