The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

This comprehensive handbook synthesizes the often-fractured relationship between the study of biology and the study of society. Bringing together a compelling array of interdisciplinary contributions, the authors demonstrate how nuanced attention to both the biological and social sciences opens up novel perspectives upon some of the most significant sociological, anthropological, philosophical and biological questions of our era. 

The six sections cover topics ranging from genomics and epigenetics, to neuroscience and psychology to social epidemiology and medicine. The authors collaboratively present state-of-the-art research and perspectives in some of the most intriguing areas of what can be called biosocial and biocultural approaches, demonstrating how quickly we are moving beyond the acrimonious debates that characterized the border between biology and society for most of the twentieth century. 

This landmark volume will be an extremely valuable resource for scholars and practitioners in all areas of the social and biological sciences.

Chapter 37 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.


Maurizio Meloni is a social theorist and a STS scholar at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author of Political Biology, the upcoming A Postgenomic Body and co-editor of Biosocial Matters

John Cromby is a psychologist at the University of Leicester, UK. He is a co-author of Psychology, Mental Health and Distress and author of Feeling Bodies: Embodying Psychology

Des Fitzgerald is a sociologist and STS scholar at Cardiff University, UK. He is author of Tracing Autism: Uncertainty, Ambiguity and the Affective Labor of Neuroscience and co-author of Rethinking Interdisciplinarity Across the Social Sciences and Neurosciences

Stephanie Lloyd is a medical anthropologist at the Université Laval, Canada. Her research examines the production of molecular models that attempt to link early experiences to specific behaviours and traits, with a particular focus on epigenetics and neurosciences.