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Original Research
Mitochondrial Memory: Transgenerational Trauma, Functional Medicine, and Quantum Physics
Rosalynn A. Vega
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Abstract
Building from Karen Barad's “diffractive methodological approach” (2007, 71), this article combines Mariella Pandolfi's notion of the female body as a transgenerational “physiological memoir” (1990, 255) with functional medicine perspectives on mitochondria and advances in quantum physics around “entanglement” to explore a new concept—“mitochondrial memory.” Recent findings in biological research depict a communicating collective of mitochondria distributed across different “human” organs and describe how this collective controls many aspects of human health through epigenetic mechanisms. Since exact copies of mitochondria are inherited through the maternal line, I draw from anthropological theory, functional medicine research, and recent discoveries in physics to offer a speculative and poetic interpretation of mitochondria as vessels containing a multilevel sense of self, allowing for connections within the same maternal line of descent across time and space. I offer autoethnographic anecdotes highlighting the struggles of immigrant women of color—women Donna Haraway might refer to as “cyborg entities” (1991, 149)—thereby framing mitochondrial memory as formed through “naturecultural” and intersectional “intra-actions” (see Barad 2007, 97; Crenshaw 1989; and Haraway 2007, 249).
Keywords
female body, transgenerational trauma, mitochondria, quantum physics, entanglement, self, ethnography, autoethnography
My Bokbok (maternal great-grandmother) was married shortly before her husband emigrated from China to work on the Central Pacific Railroad. His boot got caught in the tracks and he was killed by an oncoming train. Bokbok was widowed at twenty-nine and my Popo (maternal grandmother) grew up fatherless.
Popo immigrated with her husband and four children to the United States in March 1956. They had “six people and seven dollars” upon arrival. Those first few decades in the US were marked by extreme poverty. Popo and her children, including my mother, picked crops during the day, and my Popo worked at Hunt-Wesson cannery at night. Popo also tended to her vegetable garden—the family's primary food source. To worsen matters, Popo's arranged marriage was filled with discord. Her husband, my Gonggong, took no active role in parenting—except to unleash harsh corporal punishment (now deemed physical abuse) on his children. Thus, my mother grew up without a close relationship to either parent. Nonetheless, as a young adult, she supported Popo's decision...