Three stories about intergenerational trauma Pubblico

Abstract

This dissertation explores intergenerational trauma, embodiment, and epigenetics from a critical biocultural or biosocial anthropological lens. It is a three-paper dissertation that lays out a progressive vision for re-centering the social in the social epigenetics of intergenerational trauma. Chapter 1 begins with a biosocial conceptual model and systematic review of the relationship between preconception trauma and offspring epigenetic marks. It reveals the limited integration of ecological and social inheritance in this emerging field and suggests that epigenetic approaches have yet to fulfil the promise of precision screening and therapy. In Chapter 2, I present qualitative results of a planned but partially completed biosocial study of intergenerational trauma and embodiment in Nueva Esperanza Chaculá, a community of former refugees of the Guatemalan Civil War and their descendants living in the borderlands of highland Guatemala. I consider how participant subjectivity reveals different pathways by which trauma is transmitted and resisted between mothers and grandmothers. I use those insights to draw attention away from individualized indices of trauma and towards the inheritance of structural violence that links war-time experiences to contemporary inequality and violence in everyday life in ‘postwar’ Guatemala. In Chapter 3 I implement a study of structural racism, life-course stress, and accelerated epigenetic aging of the placenta in a cohort of mothers and children in Shelby County, TN. I use an intersectional theoretical framework to re-locate intergenerational trauma in social structures rather than individuals. I find no relationships between either structural racism or life course stress and placental epigenetic aging. However, the relationship between structural racism and risk of trauma exposure differed between Black and white women. Whereas increased residential segregation, income, and racialized income inequality buffer white women from life course trauma, none of these predictors are associated with trauma exposure in Black women. I conclude with interrogating the narrative choreography—the stories we tell ourselves and about ourselves—biosocial scientists and social epigeneticists like myself use to rationalize our work and suggest pathways for a more equitable anthropological epigenetics of the future.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Table of Contents

Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1

A dissertation disrupted: changes to the research following the COVID-19 pandemic.................. 3

Embodiment as social forensics.................................................................................................... 6

Social epigenetics meets social science.......................................................................................... 9

Anthropology of embodied intergenerational trauma.................................................................. 13

Social forensics as a failed theory of social change...................................................................... 16

Cultural models and intergenerational subjectivity....................................................................... 20

Taking the third option............................................................................................................... 22

Chapter overview and structure of the dissertation..................................................................... 23

References.................................................................................................................................. 26

Interlude 1...................................................................................................................................... 31

True Story................................................................................................................................... 31

The Father.................................................................................................................................. 33

Chapter 1: Preconception trauma and offspring epigenetics: a systematic review............................ 37

Social epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of trauma............................................ 37

Inheritance of the stress response system.................................................................................... 40

Pathways of preconception intergenerational transmission......................................................... 42

Intergenerational effects and DOHaD........................................................................................ 51

Methodological challenges in social epigenetics........................................................................... 52

Rationale..................................................................................................................................... 53

Methods...................................................................................................................................... 54

Results........................................................................................................................................ 56

Discussion.................................................................................................................................. 73

Limitations.................................................................................................................................. 80

Chapter 1 Appendix.................................................................................................................... 92

References.................................................................................................................................. 93

Interlude 2.................................................................................................................................... 104

Error......................................................................................................................................... 104

Chapter 2: Intergenerational trauma and resilience in postwar Guatemala..................................... 105

Note on data sources/collection............................................................................................... 105

Preface...................................................................................................................................... 106

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 109

Subjectivities, violence, and hope.............................................................................................. 113

Background: Nueva Esperanza Chaculá.................................................................................... 115

Methods.................................................................................................................................... 126

Results....................................................................................................................................... 134

Discussion................................................................................................................................. 155

Chapter 2 Appendix.................................................................................................................. 163

References................................................................................................................................. 168

Interlude 3.................................................................................................................................... 178

Exclusion Criteria I................................................................................................................... 178

Exclusion Criteria II.................................................................................................................. 180

Chapter 3: No evidence for placental epigenetic aging as a biomarker of structural racism and life-course stressors   182

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 182

A Developmental Perspective on Placental Aging..................................................................... 183

Structural racism....................................................................................................................... 186

Intersectional methods for social epigenetics: stratification vs. interaction................................. 186

Structural Racism and Maternal-infant health............................................................................ 188

Methods.................................................................................................................................... 190

Results....................................................................................................................................... 200

Discussion................................................................................................................................. 207

References................................................................................................................................. 214

Chapter 3 Appendix...................................................................................................................... 221

Conclusion.................................................................................................................................... 237

The story of the story................................................................................................................ 239

Through a mirror...................................................................................................................... 244

Critical Biosocial Futures........................................................................................................... 248

References................................................................................................................................. 254

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Anthropology
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Anthropology, Physical Anthropology, Cultural Health Sciences, Human Development
Parola chiave	embodiment epigenetics intergenerational trauma
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Carol M. Worthman, Emory University
Committee Members	Carmen Marsit, Emory University Chikako Ozawa- de Silva, Emory University Rachel Hall-Clifford, Emory University

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