Paper short abstract:

Ensembles of biosocial relations and the study of humans

Paper long abstract:

For decades, the nature-society divide has been subjected to critical discussion in anthropology. Recently, such critique has gained increasing support as a result of growing recognition of the artificiality of nature, represented by human reconfiguring of both life itself and global climate. This paper suggests that much depends on what is meant by the concepts of the "biological" and the "social" and how we see their relationship. In an attempt to move beyond dualism and simple interactive frameworks, in the absence of a better non-dualistic language, it makes sense, paraphrasing early Marx, to speak of human becomings as the configuration of ensembles of biosocial relations. Informed by epigenetics, social theory, and ethnography, such an approach meaningfully challenges current understandings of the division of biological and social anthropology and their takes on key issues, including those of human essences and relatedness and the interdependencies of humans and other organisms.