Paper short abstract:

In this paper, we describe: first, the process through which animal evidence gets translated into several understandings of the 'biosociality of trauma' in humans; second, how the spatio-temporalities of "epigenetic trauma" are scaled-up as distinct political possibilities of biosocial intervention.

Paper long abstract:

Epigenetics deals with different temporal and spatial scales of embodiment of social conditions, biographical experiences, and environmental exposures. Several animal and human experiments purport epigenetic effects providing meaning and value to biological traces of life experiences, or even collective tragedies. Epigenetic evidence spans from biochemical processes to long-term remanence at a temporal level, and from the molecular level to the whole milieu, passing through the womb at the spatial level.

We present the results of a lab study conducted around two experimental settings dealing with epigenetic mechanisms of traumatic memory, its consolidation and its transgenerational transmission. First, we describe how these experiments construct the relevance of knowledge produced in animal studies on trauma. In particular, we explore the sociotechnical process through which animal evidence gets translated into several understandings of the 'biosociality of trauma' in humans; namely, how trauma is the result of the reciprocal modulation of events/conditions and their embodiments. Second, and building upon these translations, we explore how the spatio-temporal scales of trauma in the confined setting of labs are scaled-up as distinct political possibilities of biosocial intervention. Starting from this finding, we finally interrogate the potential of biosocial health policies emerging from the ecological dimensions of epigenetic thinking we highlight.