Bio/Psycho/Social: Toward a southern African anthropological theory of life and life-giving

The project Bio/Psycho/Social builds on my work in the broad field of reproduction studies, framed in terms of “the First Thousand Days of Life”. It aims to investigate the conceptual apparatus concerned with ‘life’ – as inheritance, illness, population and care. Postgenomic science requires a concept of the social that is adequate to the task of representing lifeworlds beyond the reductionist frame of ‘social determinants of health’. We need a theory of the social that can do justice to worlding’s complex and lively processes, one that draws from local conceptions of what it means to be human and in relation with others, especially as those others are child-bearing persons and infants. It is critical that our theorising takes proper account of African epistemologies and lifeways. By interrogating 'biopsychosocial' as an oft-used concept that brings different domains into relation in the interests of human well-being, I will address the adequacy of our conceptual frameworks. The work will enable the development of an anthropological theory of life and life-giving that, while recognising biopolitical and necropolitical explanations, does not succumb to them as full or adequate descriptions of southern African lifeworlds. This in turn will ground a new research programme, Womb-World.