ABSTRACT
This article explores the intersection between low-complexity biomedical technologies and ideas about race in Brazil. Using ethnographic material collected in the northeastern city of Salvador on the clinical management of low white blood cell count (leukopenia), and debates involving doctors, biomedical scientists, and social movement activists on establishing racialized parameters in complete blood count tests, I explore how the notion of normalcy is connected to ideas about racial difference. Taken both at a population and individual bodily level, normalcy serves to contrast local history, portrayed as the result of widespread admixture between groups, with other national contexts, such as that of the United States. While a material body that cannot be classified as racially pure is seen as normal in the contemporary Brazilian context, nevertheless these pure racial types feature discursively as existing in a long lost past of Brazil's history. At the same time, normalcy can also be locally challenged by certain actors, such as social movement activists, who underline the specific experience of certain racialized bodies, questioning the overarching national narratives of admixture and arguing for the need to recognize these bodies as normal as well, particularly in the context of political struggle for the reduction of social inequalities. These two ways in which normalcy appears articulated with local meanings of race gives way to seemingly contradictory and confronting discourses. Thus, racial categories that are explicitly not identified with admixture are seen as a thing of the past (the history of the Nation) and a thing of the future (a more racially equal country). This can be better comprehended by the process through which different historical discourses on racial difference in Brazil appear in connection with, or as a proxy for, ideas such as nation, population or gender, originating from different places and moments in history.
ABSTRACT
Resumo Este artigo analisa a relação entre discursos médicos e noções cotidianas sobre raça, população e nação. Para isso, tomo como estudo de caso a comparação entre o uso dessas categorias na produção de artigos acadêmicos de dois renomados hematologistas brasileiros sobre a presença de hemoglobinas variantes patológicas no Brasil e a compreensão que famílias de pacientes diagnosticados com doença falciforme têm dessas mesmas questões. A comparação permite mostrar não só como os discursos da medicina influenciam o modo como questões relacionadas a raça e hereditariedade são compreendidas pelo público mais amplo, mas também a impossibilidade de separar em ambos casos, tanto na produção médica quanto nas falas dos pacientes, as noções sobre raça e hereditariedade de ideias mais amplas sobre o passado e o futuro da nação.
Abstract This article analyses the relationship between medical discourses and everyday notions of race, population and nation, using as case study the comparison between the use of these categories in medical articles of two renowned Brazilian haematologists on the presence of pathological variant haemoglobins in Brazil and the understanding of families of patients diagnosed with sickle-cell anaemia on the same questions. Through this comparison it is possible to see not only how medical discourses influence everyday notions of race and heredity, but also how in both cases these notions are inextricable from wider ideas about the past and future of the Brazilian nation.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Racial Groups , Knowledge Bases , Genetics , HemoglobinopathiesABSTRACT
The article discusses the link between the use of low-complexity biotechnologies and the diverse notions of "care" involved in the process of diagnosing sickle cell disease. It analyses the stories of four different patients and their families, all collected during ethnographic fieldwork, that illustrate several aspects of the experience of living with the condition. These stories demonstrate the presence of what Mol called the "logic of care," showing how the everyday use of diagnostic technology is set within life flows that relate to other realms of experience with biomedicine, kinship groups and community networks.
Subject(s)
Anemia, Sickle Cell/diagnosis , Neonatal Screening , Parents/psychology , Adult , Anemia, Sickle Cell/psychology , Brazil , Female , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Male , Middle AgedABSTRACT
Resumo O artigo discute a relação entre a aplicação de tecnologias médicas de baixa complexidade e as diversas noções de “cuidado” envolvidas no processo de detecção neonatal da doença falciforme. São analisadas quatro histórias sobre pacientes e suas famílias da cidade de Salvador, Bahia, coletadas durante trabalho de campo etnográfico, escolhidas por condensar vários aspectos sobre a experiência daqueles que convivem com essa doença. Nessas histórias é desvendada a presença de diversos aspectos do que Mol chamou de “lógica do cuidado”, mostrando como a aplicação da tecnologia diagnóstica insere-se em fluxos de “vida” que invocam outros âmbitos da experiência com a biomedicina, relações de família e comunidade.
Abstract The article discusses the link between the use of low-complexity biotechnologies and the diverse notions of “care” involved in the process of diagnosing sickle cell disease. It analyses the stories of four different patients and their families, all collected during ethnographic fieldwork, that illustrate several aspects of the experience of living with the condition. These stories demonstrate the presence of what Mol called the “logic of care,” showing how the everyday use of diagnostic technology is set within life flows that relate to other realms of experience with biomedicine, kinship groups and community networks.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Infant, Newborn , Adult , Middle Aged , Anemia, Sickle Cell/diagnosis , Neonatal Screening , Parents/psychology , Anemia, Sickle Cell/psychology , BrazilABSTRACT
Neste artigo examino como geneticistas contemporâneos que pesquisam a história e a configuração da população brasileira interagem com outras disciplinas. Para tanto, tomei como estudo de caso artigos publicados por geneticistas que investigam a presença de variantes da hemoglobina S no Brasil, os quais pretendem claramente contribuir para a análise de questões como escravidão ou identidade étnica no país. Contrastando esses estudos com trabalhos contemporâneos da história e das ciências sociais, problematizo a centralidade explanatória da “origem” nos estudos genéticos analisados, bem como a falta de interação com questões epistemológicas de outras áreas do saber.
In this article I examine how contemporary geneticists investigating the history and configuration of the Brazilian population engage with other academic disciplines. To do so I use as a case study some articles published by geneticists researching the presence of hemoglobin S variants in Brazil, in which there is a clear pretension to contribute to the analysis of issues such as slavery or Brazil’s ethnic identity. By contrasting these studies with contemporary works from history and the social science, the explanatory centrality of “origin” in the genetic studies analyzed is problematized, as is the lack of interaction with the epistemological characteristics of other areas of knowledge.
Subject(s)
Animals , Rats , Hemoglobins/metabolism , Iron-Binding Proteins , Iron/metabolism , Reticulocytes/metabolism , Biological Transport , Carrier Proteins/metabolism , Ferric Compounds/metabolism , Integrins/metabolism , Rats, Wistar , Transferrin/metabolismABSTRACT
In this article I examine how contemporary geneticists investigating the history and configuration of the Brazilian population engage with other academic disciplines. To do so I use as a case study some articles published by geneticists researching the presence of hemoglobin S variants in Brazil, in which there is a clear pretension to contribute to the analysis of issues such as slavery or Brazil's ethnic identity. By contrasting these studies with contemporary works from history and the social science, the explanatory centrality of "origin" in the genetic studies analyzed is problematized, as is the lack of interaction with the epistemological characteristics of other areas of knowledge.
