Situating Environmental Epigenetics. A Comparative, Actor-Centered Study of Environmental Epigenetics as an Emergent Research Approach in Three Research Fields.

表观遗传学探索基因表达的变化，这些变化不是由基因突变引起的，而是由DNA上的化学修饰引起的。近年来，这种表观遗传修饰被发现对来自环境的许多刺激做出反应-例如毒素，营养，创伤或压力-从而产生“环境表观遗传学”。通过提出这些因素如何改变基因表达的机制，环境表观遗传学为理解生命科学和社会中的健康和疾病提供了重要的新视角。一些人欢迎它作为一种新的生物学，承认社会背景对生物学的作用，并允许社会正义的观点为生物学研究提供信息。其他人则怀疑它与生物中心主义观点的决裂，并认为它引入了一个新的生物决定位点：表观遗传标记。因此，环境表观遗传学的认识，社会和政治潜力的评估diverce.We建议，这种不和谐的部分原因是，转向环境表观遗传学经常被讨论，好像它构成了一个统一的认识转变。大部分文献要么讨论了跨研究领域的环境表观遗传学，而没有详细关注其在不同领域的具体实例，要么从一个领域或实验室的一个特定案例研究的Vantage位置。我们建议采取一种不同的方法：比较不同领域的研究人员如何采用和适应环境表观遗传学，并探索它所获得的情境认知，社会和政治特征。（营养流行病学;环境毒理学;情绪和焦虑的病理生理学），我们将研究每个领域中与环境表观遗传学有关的关键研究人员。使用定性的社会科学方法，如访谈，民族志观察和文件分析，我们将分析环境表观遗传学在他们的研究中发挥的作用;如果，为什么以及如何他们想象它应该成为他们领域更广泛的研究的一部分;以及它如何告知他们对健康和疾病的生物和社会理解。通过采取这种比较的方法，我们给空间的可能性，环境表观遗传学可能会构成不同的“认识的东西”（Rheinberger，1997）在不同的研究背景下，不同的社会和政治影响。这种方法建立在科学和技术研究的见解，强调知识生产的位置特征（Haraway，1988; Knorr-Cetina，1999）和对上下文敏感的研究方法的需要（Jasanoff，2004）。除了促进社会科学辩论，该项目还将促进社会科学和生命科学之间的建设性跨学科对话。

Epigenetics explores changes in gene expression that do not result from gene mutation, but from chemical modifications on the DNA. In recent years, such epigenetic modifications have been found to respond to numerous stimuli from the environment – such as toxins, nutrition, trauma or stress – giving rise to ‘environmental epigenetics’. By proposing mechanisms for how such factors can alter gene expression, environmental epigenetics offers important novel perspectives for understanding health and illness in the life sciences and in society.In the social sciences, environmental epigenetics has been received with enthusiasm and skepticism. Some have welcomed it as a new kind of biology that acknowledges the role of social context for biology and allows social justice perspectives to inform biological research. Others have doubted that it constitutes a break with bio-centric perspectives and have argued that it introduces a novel locus of biological determination: the epigenetic mark. Hence, assessments of the epistemic, social and political potentials of environmental epigenetics diverge.We propose that this dissonance is due in part to the fact that the turn to environmental epigenetics is often discussed as if it constituted one uniform epistemic transformation. Much of the literature either discusses environmental epigenetics across research fields without detailed attention to its specific instantiations in different fields, or from the vantage point of one specific case study in one field or lab. We propose to take a different approach: to compare how environmental epigenetics is adopted and adapted by researchers in different fields and to explore the situated epistemic, social and political characteristics it acquires.Focusing on three research fields of great relevance for public health (nutritional epidemiology; environmental toxicology; the pathophysiology of mood & anxiety), we will study key researchers in each field who work with environmental epigenetics. Using qualitative social science methods such as interviews, ethnographic observation and document analysis, we will analyze the role environmental epigenetics plays in their research; if, why and how they imagine it should become part of research in their fields more broadly; and how it informs their biological and social understandings of health and illness. By taking this comparative approach we give room to the possibility that environmental epigenetics might constitute different “epistemic things” (Rheinberger, 1997) in different research contexts with different social and political implications. This approach builds on insights from Science & Technology Studies that emphasize the situated character of knowledge production (Haraway, 1988; Knorr-Cetina, 1999) and the need for context-sensitive research approaches (Jasanoff, 2004). Beyond contributing to social science debates the project will also promote constructive interdisciplinary dialogue between social and life sciences.