Does it make sense to talk about the "totality of exhibitions"? Critical exhibition theory

  • Category: ExposUM Permanent Seminar
  • Dates : October 10, 2024
  • Opening hours: 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
  • Venue: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme/UPVM - salle Kouros - 71 rue du Professeur Henri Serre, 34090 Montpellier and by videoconference

Seminar theme: "The limits of integration ambitions

According to the definition first proposed by Christopher Wild in 2005, the exposome concept refers to "the totality of exposures to which an individual is subjected throughout his or her life [...] integrating the chemical, microbiological, physical, recreational, medicinal, lifestyle and dietary environments, as well as infections". But what does the use of the term "totality" mean here?

In this presentation, Gilles Moutot examines the exposome concept and its use in current scientific issues. In so doing, he offers us an entry into the philosophy of health. Since its emergence, the exposome concept has been associated with the promise of a thorough (total) understanding of the links between health and the environment. However, the exposome is often studied in a "reductionist" approach, via collections of data measured by biomarkers - biomarkers considered to reflect the effect of the environment on our bodies. How can we link the exposome concept to the idea of totality, not as an addition of data but as a synthesis of these data, in a truly integrated approach?

The aim is to identify two main difficulties encountered when using this concept: it is associated with an impossible exhaustiveness, and it separates the organism from the environment / the internal and external environments. As such, this concept faces the same challenges as the notion of milieu(x) de vie, as an indecomposable reality, existing only through the complex and reciprocal links between living beings and ecosystems.

Gilles Moutot is a lecturer in philosophy at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Montpellier-Nîmes, and a member of the Centre d'études politiques et sociales (CEPEL) (University of Montpellier / CNRS). He recently co-edited the collective work Médecine, santé et sciences humaines. Manuel du Collège des humanités médicales (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2021).

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