Bodies of the Anthropocene: On the interactive plasticity of earth systems and biological organisms

Abstract

The Anthropocene literature has brought attention to the plasticity and porosity of Earth systems under the dramatic impact of human activities. Moving across scales of analysis, this paper focuses attention on anthropogenic effects at the micro-scale of genomic regulation, neuronal functioning and cellular activity. Building on expanding dialogues at the interface of Anthropocene science, biogeography, microbiology and ecotoxicology, we mobilize epigenetic findings to show increasing evidence of anthropogenic changes in plants, animals and human bodies. Treating human-induced changes at the macro-global and micro-biological scales as part of an intertwined process has implications for how these problems are conceptualised and addressed. While we are sceptics about major geo-bio-social syntheses, we believe that agile social-scientific tools can facilitate interaction across disciplines without denying unevenness, and differences. If rightly contextualized in broad anthropological and social science frameworks, biosocial work on epigenetics offers a compelling avenue to make detectable the ‘slow violence’ of everyday pollution, racism, inequalities and the disproportionate impact of the Anthropocene on the poor and vulnerable. Consolidating work at the Anthropocene/biology interface has potential to offer a richer and more complete picture of the present crisis at the macro and micro-scale alike.

Untimely Ecology: A Genealogy of Biosphere to Rethink Temporality in the Anthropocene

“…The real challenge is to understand how these multiple regimes of temporality intersect, intermingle and interfere. Currently we know that the Anthropocene activity affects microbial evolution (Gillings and Paulsen, 2014), and generates anthropogenic effects at the micro-scale of genomic regulation, neuronal functioning and cellular activity (Meloni et al, 2021). Yet, we do not have a theoretical model to deal with this pressing planetary problem.…”

Abundance and absence: Human-microbial co-evolution in the Anthropocene

“…As microbial genetic evolution occurs at a radically faster rate than human genetic evolution – hours to days versus decades to centuries – the effects of antibiotic use on human genetic evolution is obscured by more rapid changes in cultural and technological evolution, such as the development of new antibiotic classes (Martínez and Baquero, 2002). At the same time, the consequences of antibiotic use are paramount for human biology at more readily perceived levels: In the Anthropocene, where human biology has become increasingly permeable to a contaminated world (Meloni et al, 2022), antibiotics use is linked to epigenetic changes, microbiota dysbiosis, and complex non-communicable diseases (Austvol et al, 2020; see below). The co-evolutionary dynamics between humans and microorganisms, therefore, operate at distinct spatial-temporal levels and as complex interactions between various biological, cultural, and technological strata.…”

“…In a recent paper Meloni et al (2022) discuss biological plasticity in the Anthropocene, and how changes in earth systems are increasingly registered in the biological substratum of living organisms. Although their focus is on epigenetic mechanisms as a form of biological plasticity that exhibit rapid, reversible, flexible, and sometimes heritable responses to environmental stressors, a focus on bacteria gives a view of the genetic structure itself – including the sequence of base pairs that comprise it – as flexible and responsive over short time periods, as well as mobile, and conjugative.…”

Cultural Attunements and Ecological Wellbeing: Embodied Conditions for Mental Health Interventions

“…Modern bodies are changed by and continue to endure the “slow violence” and health inequalities of today, which necessitate understanding through biosocial processes [ 15 ]. Industrialized bodies are disconnected from nature, meaning that humans are deprived of sensory and somatic experiences.…”