Episode #30: Rick Smith and Megan Warin

Conversations in Anthropology

Hello friends, how are you? Are you running out of listening content? We are back with a new episode, featuring a conversation recorded by Matt Barlow (in the days before physical distancing) with Rick Smith and Megan Warin. Rick is a biocultural anthropologist who is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Neukom Institute for Computational Science and the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth, and Megan is a professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Adelaide. In this episode, they discuss epigenetics - its origins, politics, promise and potential risks - and what anthropology can contribute to this field of biological research. Many thanks to Alex Fimeri and his team at the Learning Enhancement and Innovation Unit at the University of Adelaide for their assistance in the recording of this episode. DOHaD (https://dohadsoc.org/) Indigenous STS Lab (https://indigenoussts.com/) Scholarship mentioned: Alaimo, Stacy. 2010. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. Barker, David. 1994. Mothers, babies, and health in later life. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingston. Bolnick, Deborah. 2015. ‘Combating Racial Health Disparities through Medical Education: The Need for Anthropological and Genetic Perspectives in Medical Training.’ Human Biology. 87(4): 361-371. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coole, Diane and Samantha Frost. 2010. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham: Duke University Press. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions. Roberts, Elizabeth. 2019. ‘Bioethnography and the Birth Cohort: A Method for Making New Kinds of Anthropological Knowledge about Transmission (which is what anthropology has been about all along).’ Somatosphere. November 19. http://somatosphere.net/2019/bioethnography-anthropological-knowledge-transmission.html/ Sharp, Gemma G; Deborah A Lawlor; Sarah S Richardson. 2018. ‘It’s the mother!: How assumptions about the causal primacy of maternal effects influence research on the developmental origins of health and disease’. Social Science & Medicine. Vol. 213: 20-27. Smith, Rick and Deborah Bolnick. 2019. ‘Situating Science: Doing Biological Anthropology as a View from Somewhere.’ In: Vital Topics Forum—How Academic Diversity is Transforming Scientific Knowledge in Biological Anthropology. American Anthropologist. 121(2): 465-467. Tallbear, Kim. 2013. Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Verran, Helen. 2001. Science and an African Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Warin, Megan and Tanya Zivkovic. 2019. Fatness, Obesity, and Disadvantage in the Australian Suburbs: Unpalatable Politics. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Warin, Megan; Emma Kowal; Maurizio Meloni. 2020. ‘Indigenous Knowledge in a Postgenomic Landscape: The Politics of Epigenetic Hope and Reparation in Australia.’ Science, Technology, & Human Values. 45(1): 87-111. Conversations in Anthropology is a podcast about life, the universe, and anthropology produced by David Boarder Giles, Timothy Neale, Cameo Dalley, Mythily Meher and Matt Barlow. This podcast is made in partnership with the American Anthropological Association and supported by the Faculty of Arts & Education at Deakin University. Find us at conversationsinanthropology.wordpress.com or on Twitter at @AnthroConvo