The emergent field of environmental epigenetics, which studies health effects of ‘xenobiotic’ chemicals, fundamentally challenges standard models of the biochemical pathways that shape bodies and human health. This article explores the implications of these discoveries for geographic knowledge in the nature-society and spatial traditions of human health, both of which have tended to black-box the material, biochemical body and treat the environment as an inert setting. Discoveries in epigenetics suggest that the environment is a biochemically active inducer of phenotypical development. In addition, understandings of the delayed temporality and intergenerational effects of epigenetic mechanisms challenge methodologies that privilege space.
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