In the 1980s, a research team led by Parisian scientists
identified several unique DNA sequences, or haplotypes, linked to
sickle cell anemia in African populations. After casual
observations of how patients managed this painful blood disorder,
the researchers in question postulated that the Senegalese type was
less severe. "The Enculturated Gene" traces how this genetic
discourse has blotted from view the roles that Senegalese patients
and doctors have played in making sickle cell "mild" in a social
setting where public health priorities and economic austerity
programs have forced people to improvise informal strategies of
care.
Duana Fullwiley shows how geneticists, who were fixated on
population differences, never investigated the various modalities
of self-care that people developed in this context of biomedical
scarcity, and how local doctors, confronted with dire cuts in
Senegal's health sector, wittingly accepted the genetic prognosis
of better-than-expected health outcomes. Unlike most genetic
determinisms that highlight the absoluteness of disease, DNA
haplotypes for sickle cell in Senegal did the opposite. As
Fullwiley demonstrates, they allowed the condition to remain
officially invisible, never to materialize as a health priority. At
the same time, scientists' attribution of a less severe form of
Senegalese sickle cell to isolated DNA sequences closed off other
explanations of this population's measured biological success.
"The Enculturated Gene" reveals how the notion of an
advantageous form of sickle cell in this part of West Africa has
defined--and obscured--the nature of this illness in Senegal
today.
General
Imprint: |
Princeton University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
November 2011 |
First published: |
November 2011 |
Authors: |
Duana Fullwiley
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 152 x 23mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
368 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-691-12317-2 |
Categories: |
Books >
Medicine >
Clinical & internal medicine >
General
|
LSN: |
0-691-12317-9 |
Barcode: |
9780691123172 |
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