Political Transformations of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and Epigenetics in the Global South 2

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

DOHaD and epigenetics have growing relevance to the health programs around the world and are a key platform in global health initiatives such as the World Health Organisation and United Nations. Issues of nutrition, living and working conditions, environmental exposures, poverty and inequality are key to conceptual understandings of health across the lifecourse and in postgenomic programs such as environmental epigenetics and microbiomics. This panel invites papers that interrogate the ways in which DOHaD and epigenetics intersect with local knowledge and local biologies in the Global South, and the broader politics of governance and biopower that such programs may entail. We envisage themes such as: how DOHaD and epigenetics are translated into cultural practices of reproduction, eating, care and kinship; the uptake of notions of biological plasticity; and how the politics of race, colonialism and violence are imbricated and negotiated in encounters between life science, history and daily lives, particularly in the Global South. These themes are not exhaustive and we welcome other contributions in this field.

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Political transformations of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and epigenetics in the Global South

Chairs

• Fiona Ross, University of Cape Town

• Maurizio Meloni

Individual Presentations

• PLASTICITY, BIOPOWER AND EMPIRE: An Archaeology - Maurizio Meloni

• The political load of the mismatch model - Flavio D'Abramo, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

• Time, trauma, and the brain: some implications of environmental epigenetics research on suicide risk - Stephanie Lloyd, Université Laval

• Transgenerational Epigenetics and Ancient Practice: Fetal Education in East Asia - Chikako Takeshita, University of California, Riverside

• Local knowledge of DOHaD in New Zealand - Tatjana Buklijas, Liggins Institute, University of Auckland; Helen Johanna Ker, University of Auckland

Session Organizers

• Megan Warin, University of Adelaide

• Michelle Pentecost, Kings College London

• Fiona Ross, University of Cape Town

• Maurizio Meloni