Description
Book SynopsisEpigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression, has been heralded as one of the most promising new fields of scientific inquiry. Current large-scale studies selectively draw on epigenetics to connect behavioral choices made by pregnant people, such as diet and exercise, to health risks for future generations. As the first ethnography of its kind, Weighing the Future examines the sociopolitical implications of ongoing pregnancy trials in the United States and the United Kingdom, illuminating how processes of scientific knowledge production are linked to capitalism, surveillance, and environmental reproduction. Natali Valdez argues that a focus on individual behavior rather than social environments ignores the vital impacts of systemic racism. The environments we imagine to shape our genes, bodies, and future health are intimately tied to race, gender, and structures of inequality. This groundbreaking book makes the case that science, and how we translate it, is a reproductive project that requires feminist vigilance. Instead of fixating on a future at risk, this book brings attention to the present at stake.
Trade Review"A ground-breaking book, both subtle and razor-sharp in its analysis. It provides an immensely valuable critique of the workings of epigenetic foreclosure in pregnancy trials." * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Weighing the Future
Part I
1. Epistemic Environments: Reproducing Solutions
to Past, Present, and Future Maternal Health
2. Un/Altered: The Durability of Individualized
Interventions for Multidimensional Illness
Part II
3. Politics of Recruitment: How Fatness, Race,
and Risk Shape Contemporary Pregnancy Trials
4. Pregnant Narratives: Experiencing Lifestyle
Interventions
Part III
5. Environmental Animations: What Counts
as the Maternal Environment?
6. Prospecting Pregnancies: Data, Time,
and Speculative Value
Conclusion: The Afterbirth of Foreclosure
Epilogue: [The Future] Is Composed of Nows
Notes
References
Index
