This article analyses attempts to enact complexity in postgenomic experimentations using the case of epigenetic research on biomarkers of psychosocial stress. Enacting complexity in this research means dissecting multiple so-called biosocial processes of health differentiation in the face of stressful experiences. To characterize enactments of biosocial complexity, the article develops the concepts of complexity work and complexification. The former emphasizes the social, technical, and material work that goes into the production of mixed biological and social representations of stress in epigenetics. The latter underlines how complexity can be assembled differently across distinct configurations of experimental work. Specifically, complexification can be defined as producing, stabilizing, and normalizing novel experimental systems that are supposed to improve techno-scientific enactments of complexity. In the case of epigenetics, complexification entails a reconfiguration of postgenomic experimental systems in ways that some actors deem ‘better’ at enacting health as a biosocial process. This study of complexity work and complexification shows that biosocial complexity is hardly a univocal enterprise in epigenetics. Consequently, the article calls for abandoning analysis of these research practices using clear-cut dichotomies of reductionism vs. holism, as well as simplicity vs. complexity. More broadly, the article suggests the relevance of a sociology of complexification for STS approaches to complexity in scientific practices. Complementing the existing focus on complexity as instrumental rhetoric in contemporary sciences, complexification directs analytical attention to the pragmatic opportunities that alternative (biosocial) complexities offer to collective, societal, and political thinking about science in society.

中文翻译：

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体现生物社会复杂性：压力、表观遗传生物标志物和后基因组学工具


本文以心理社会压力生物标志物的表观遗传学研究为例，分析了在后基因组实验中实现复杂性的尝试。这项研究的复杂性意味着剖析面对压力经历时健康分化的多个所谓的生物社会过程。为了描述生物社会复杂性的表现，本文提出了复杂性工作和复杂化的概念。前者强调在表观遗传学中产生压力的混合生物和社会表征的社会、技术和物质工作。后者强调了如何在不同的实验工作配置中以不同的方式组合复杂性。具体来说，复杂化可以定义为产生、稳定和标准化新颖的实验系统，这些系统应该改善复杂性的技术科学制定。就表观遗传学而言，复杂化需要对后基因组实验系统进行重新配置，某些参与者认为“更好”地将健康作为一个生物社会过程。这项对复杂性工作和复杂化的研究表明，生物社会复杂性在表观遗传学中很难说是一个明确的事业。因此，本文呼吁放弃使用还原论与整体论以及简单性与复杂性的明确二分法来分析这些研究实践。更广泛地说，本文提出了复杂化社会学与 STS 方法与科学实践中复杂性的相关性。 作为当代科学中对复杂性作为工具修辞的现有关注的补充，复杂化将分析注意力引向了替代性（生物社会）复杂性为社会科学的集体、社会和政治思考提供的务实机会。