A Postgenomic Body: Histories, Genealogy, Politics. (September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Meloni, Maurizio
• Is Part Of: Body & society. Volume 24:Number 3(2018:Sep.)
• Page Start: 3
• Page End: 38
• Publication Date: 2018-09
• Subjects: biopolitics -- epigenetics -- Foucault -- genealogy -- microbiomics -- plasticity -- postgenomics; Human body -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 306.4613
• DOI: 10.1177/1357034X18785445
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1357-034X

Abstract

This article sets the stage for a genealogy of the postgenomic body. It starts with the current transformative views of epigenetics and microbiomics to offer a more pluralistic history in which the ethical problem of how to live with a permeable body – that is plasticity as a form of life – is pervasive in traditions pre-dating and coexisting with modern biomedicine (particularly humoralism in its several ramifications). To challenge universalizing narratives, I draw on genealogical method to illuminate the unequal distribution of plasticity across gender and ethnic groups. Finally, after analysing postgenomics as a different thought-style to genomics, I outline some of its implications for notions of plasticity. I argue that postgenomic plasticity is neither a modernistic plasticity of instrumental control of the body nor a postmodernist celebration of endless potentialities. It is instead closer to an alter-modernistic view that disrupts clear boundaries between openness and determination, individual and community.