Getting under performance's skin: epigenetics and gender performativity

Abstract

Getting under performance's skin: epigenetics and gender performativityThis article offers a re-examination of Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity (as described in her influential 1990 work Gender Trouble) in the light of recent epigenetic discoveries. Epigenetics is the study of molecular mechanisms that modify the manner in which DNA sequences are expressed while leaving the sequence itself intact. These processes can be influenced by environmental factors, demonstrating how our environment can affect us at the cellular level with important consequences for the ways in which we think about behaviour, gender and identity. Through an exploration of a range of scientific papers (in conjunction with an epigenetic reading of Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues), this article asks if epigenetics could provide a mechanism through which gender performance achieves some degree of biological embodiment. Although current research can offer a basis for some interesting speculation, it is also clear that such a question cannot yet be answered. Fortunately, new lines of investigation could one day provide us with a clearer idea of the relationship between gender performance and epigenetics.

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

“…On the other hand, epigenetics may also serve as argument against controversial claims that social and other environmental influences are more important for individuality (e.g. personality, gender, health) than is biology (Boniolo and Testa, 2012; Osborne, 2015). Certain scholars propose the use of ‘co-productionist’ frameworks to provide better accounts for the increasingly blurred line between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, and to bridge concepts and approaches that are seemingly irreconcilable at first sight, such as positivist (or essentialist) and social constructivist research methods (Klepfer, 2016; Maller, 2016; Meloni, 2016; Meloni and Testa, 2014: 445).…”

“…The epistemic upheaval proposed by epigenetics seems to reside in a certain valorization of the social, through a better understanding of its complex interrelations with, and influences on, biology (Jablonka, 2016; Lerner and Overton, 2017; Meloni and Testa, 2014: 449). Following developments in this field, environmental and sociocultural circumstances can be understood as external ‘signals’ (Landecker, 2016; Shields, 2017) which can be ‘mechanistically’ internalized into the body, thus actively producing long-term biochemical changes and becoming an integral part of a person’s ‘epigenetic history’ (Boniolo and Testa, 2012; Osborne, 2015). This ‘embodiment’ (Thayer and Non, 2015) of a person’s experiences and surroundings is conceptualized as the ‘molecularization of biography and milieu’ (Niewöhner, 2011: 291).…”

Indigenous South African poetry as conduits of History: Epi-poetics – a pedagogy of memory

“…Epigenetics is closely aligned to genetics and studies inter-generational changes in gene expression and the transfer of epigenetic marks in the progeny. Changes in gene activity and gene activation lead to the dynamic interaction among language, the body and the physical, social and cultural environments (Middleton, 2015;Bloomfield, Garratt, Mackay, Richardson, Spector and Temple, 2015;Bloomfield & Hanson, 2015;Gill, 2015;Osborne, 2015;Hanson, 2015). These authors highlight the relevance of epigenetics in the study of race, gender and identity within social, cultural, literary and historical texts and contexts.…”

Rapprochement Des Pôles Nature Et Culture Par La Recherche en Épigénétique : Dissection D’un Bouleversement Épistémologique Attendu

“…La recherche en épigénétique expose les mécanismes biochimiques par lesquels l'environnement développemental « s'intègre sous la peau » des personnes (Meloni, 2014a;Osborne, 2015). Elle nous conduirait ainsi vers une sorte d'internalisation des conditions de vie (Niewöhner, 2011;Dupras et Ravitsky, 2016b).…”

“…12 Dans son ouvrage Gender Trouble, publié en 1990, la féministe Judith Butler définit le genre comme « the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts ... that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being ». Elle s'oppose au genre comme « catégorie "naturelle" objective » et soutient qu'il est le fruit de l'adhésion, au quotidien, à des pratiques et à des discours (Osborne, 2015). 13 Réductionnisme pragmatique : « Linear understandings of physiological change underpin most explanations of disease aetiology.…”