Xenobiotic chemicals (for example, PCBs, BPA and methylmercury) play a central role in the
new field of 'environmental epigenetics', which identifies factors that regulate the expression
of genes, thereby suggesting the fundamental plasticity of biology. This article examines the
role of race in the emerging 'epigenetic biopolitics' of environmental chemicals. Analysis of
the paradigmatic case of methylmercury contamination in fish reveals a new racial formation
in which race is important precisely because biology is plastic. Because methylmercury …