Country : South Africa
Assignment Task

My parents immigrated to the United States from South Korea in the late 80’s in search of political stability and socioeconomic opportunity. While they did not come with much money or many belongings, as children of survivors of Japanese colonialism and the Korean War, my parents brought with them the heavy burdens of historical trauma from militarized occupation and their memories of growing up in a precarious and rapidly transitioning post-war society. As I grew older and became aware of such violent histories, I wondered how the phantoms of my family’s past could continue to haunt us in the future. How did my ancestors, grandparents, and parents endure and overcome such oppressive conditions, and could the cumulative trauma they embodied overtime reverberate across multiple generations and affect me?

These life-long reflections have motivated my current dissertation research, which asks: How is trauma biologically inherited across generations? In the past two decades, scientists have taken growing interest in the possibility that human physiological mechanisms may underlie the transmission of stress and trauma across generations (Carey 2018; Pember 2015). Major recent scientific breakthroughs, such as the epigenetic inheritance of maternal care in rats (Weaver et al. 2004) and the consonance of biological and psychiatric trauma phenotypes between Holocaust survivors and their “unexposed” children (Yehuda & Brier 2007), shed light on the possibility that the effects of trauma may be intergenerationally transmissible through hormonal and epigenetic processes (Yehuda & Brier 2007, Fish et al. 2004; Weaver et al. 2004). In particular, the intergenerational transmission of trauma has been widely theorized to manifest during fetal development as a result of maternal exposures to social adversity (Kuzawa & Sweet 2009; Weinstock 2008).

Though scientists have only recently documented the intergenerational impacts of trauma on human biology and health, communities across the globe have long witnessed the lingering impacts of historical traumas on the health and well-being of subsequent generations (Andermahr 2016; GobodoMadikizela 2016; Schwab 2010). These intergenerational manifestations of trauma have been described as feelings of collective “loss” in various Native American groups, (Whitbeck et al. 2004) and discordant family relationships in Alaska Native communities (Evans-Campbell 2008). The effects of intergenerational trauma are also understood to affect the development of a variety of stress-related illnesses such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cardiovascular diseases, among others. They also manifest in higher rates of diagnosis of mental illness, particularly in systematically marginalized groups (Yehuda et al. 2008; Mai et al. 2010; Gone 2009). Overtime, greater recognition of the long-term consequences of historical trauma has proven to give meaning to various complex family dynamics such “generational curses,” (Ajatnoah-Gyadu 2004; Vuong 2019; Yoon 2018) “intergenerational cultural dissonance” (Choi et al. 2008; Kane et al. 2019), and other cyclical patterns of family-based violence.

A large body of scholarship in public health and the social sciences has framed these cases of intergenerational trauma through deficit models of health and the theoretical lens of social suffering (Butt 2002; Kleinman et al. 1997; Morgan & Ziglio 2007; Robbins 2013). Some communities have reclaimed scientific evidence of intergenerational trauma in order to raise awareness about the legacies of embodied oppression (Dubois & Guaspare 2020; Grossi 2020). For example, Native American, Australian Aboriginal, and African and African diasporic groups have used scientific studies of intergenerational stress transmission to push for reparative action and redistributive justice in their respective communities (Bombay et al. 2014; ICC 2017; Rothstein et al. 2009; Warin et al. 2020).

Birth cohort studies have become the gold-standard method for tracing the intergenerational transmission of stress primarily due to the major focus on the developmental origins of health and disease framework in public health (Barker et al. 1989). Epidemiologists and public health officials have held birth cohort studies in high regard to elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying intergenerational trauma, as stress-related diseases such as depression and hypertension are understood to largely originate from intrauterine exposures to maternal trauma and social adversity (Entringer et al. 2015). And after twenty years of research using birth cohort studies to assess the DOHaD hypothesis, anthropologists have entered these research conversations with much-needed critical discussions of the social and political consequences of the current course of research on intergenerational trauma. Given the rapid pace at which scientific knowledge about the biology of intergenerational trauma from birth cohort studies is moving as well as the deep political and ethical implications of such biosocial research, we must take pause to critically reflect on how scientific knowledge about intergenerational trauma is produced and its potential social implications.

Tracing three generations in a longitudinal birth cohort study in Soweto, South Africa

I bring these reflections to my dissertation work in South Africa where I’ve studied the intergenerational mental health impacts of stress and trauma from apartheid across three generations of black South African families living in the Soweto township of Johannesburg. In the early 1990s, thousands of expectant mothers (first generation) across race and class lines were enrolled into what is now a 30-year ongoing birth cohort study, the “Soweto Community Study” (SCS) (a pseudonym).

SCS began enrolling pregnant women during a pivotal period in South African history, which included the release of Nelson Mandela and the beginning of negotiations to formally end apartheid. Political and community violence, however, continued to ensue in Soweto, fueled by strict militarized political repression of resistance movements, covert government efforts to instigate interethnic violence in black communities, and community violence over scarce resources in informal settlements (Beinhart 2001). It is estimated that approximately half the people who died due to political violence during the apartheid regime died in the last four years (1990-1994) (Beinhart 2001; Hickel 2015).

During this time, expectant mothers participated in their first SCS visit and completed a series of surveys during their third trimester, one of which was a 16-question scale of apartheid-related stressful and traumatic events. The aim of SCS was to evaluate the long-term impacts of rapid urbanization and societal transition from apartheid on child health and well-being. And although SCS children were all in utero during the apartheid regime, they unexpectedly became among the first generations of children born into a democratic South Africa.

 

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  • Posted on : October 08th, 2018
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