Signs of Exposure: An Inquiry into Biosocial Zones of Engagement

Breathing and eating are two vital processes of exchange between the human body and its environment, but where does the body end and the environment begin? In this socio-/anthropological research, I will relate this fundamental ontological question to its immediate societal and political implications. Conceptualizing breathing and eating as indeterminate zones of exchange, I propose an ethnographic inquiry into two specific scientific practices that search for signs of exposure to air components and food components, either inside the body (environmental and nutritional epigenetics) or outside the body (environmental sensing). I ask how and for whom the definition of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ is at stake in these scientific practices, and how this affects the framings and possibilities of claims to environmental health and justice. I hypothesize that new research designs in epigenetics on the one hand, and new crowdsourced sensing projects on the other, will produce new ontologies of both body and environment, thereby articulating different, yet co-existing definitions of what ‘exposure’ means and who or what is responsible for it. Theorizing this entanglement of ontology and politics will not only allow to better understand crucial future challenges for human and environmental health, it will also allow to provocatively rethink the current boundaries between the social sciences and the life sciences.