TY - JOUR
T1 - Mapping the new molecular landscape
T2 - Social dimensions of epigenetics
AU - Pickersgill, Martyn
AU - Niewöhner, Jörg
AU - Müller, Ruth
AU - Martin, Paul
AU - Cunningham-Burley, Sarah
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper was stimulated by a workshop (“Mapping the New Molecular Landscape: Social and Ethical Aspects of Epigenetics”), convened by Pickersgill and held at the University of Edinburgh on 24 September, 2012. It was made possible through the generous support of the Wellcome Trust, through the Strategic Award “The Human Body, its Scope, Limits and Future” (of which Cunningham-Burley is a co-investigator). We are especially grateful to a key contributor at that workshop, Professor Ilina Singh (King’s College, London), for her valuable commentary on an earlier draft of this paper, and we also acknowledge the Edinburgh Sociology of Health and Illness Study Group for their constructive engagements with (and suggestions regarding) the arguments advanced herein.
PY - 2013/12/1
Y1 - 2013/12/1
N2 - Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the DNA itself. The field is rapidly growing and being widely promoted, attracting attention in diverse arenas. These include those of the social sciences, where some researchers have been encouraged by the resonance between imaginaries of development within epigenetics and social theory. Yet, sustained attention from science and technology studies (STS) scholars to epigenetics and the praxis it propels has been lacking. In this article, we reflexively consider some of the ways in which epigenetics is being constructed as an area of biomedical novelty and discuss the content and logics underlying the ambivalent promises being made by scientists working in this area. We then reflect on the scope, limits and future of engagements between epigenetics and the social sciences. Our discussion is situated within wider literatures on biomedicine and society, the politics of "interventionist STS", and on the problems of "caseness" within empirical social science.
AB - Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the DNA itself. The field is rapidly growing and being widely promoted, attracting attention in diverse arenas. These include those of the social sciences, where some researchers have been encouraged by the resonance between imaginaries of development within epigenetics and social theory. Yet, sustained attention from science and technology studies (STS) scholars to epigenetics and the praxis it propels has been lacking. In this article, we reflexively consider some of the ways in which epigenetics is being constructed as an area of biomedical novelty and discuss the content and logics underlying the ambivalent promises being made by scientists working in this area. We then reflect on the scope, limits and future of engagements between epigenetics and the social sciences. Our discussion is situated within wider literatures on biomedicine and society, the politics of "interventionist STS", and on the problems of "caseness" within empirical social science.
KW - Cancer
KW - Epigenetics
KW - Methylation
KW - Novelty
KW - Promise
KW - Social science
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84890506064&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14636778.2013.861739
DO - 10.1080/14636778.2013.861739
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84890506064
SN - 1463-6778
VL - 32
SP - 429
EP - 447
JO - New Genetics and Society
JF - New Genetics and Society
IS - 4
ER -
