Race, Kidney Transplants, Immunosuppression Research, and White Supremacy under Apartheid, 1960-80.

This paper uses the history of kidney transplantation in South Africa as a lens through which to write a racialized, micro history that illustrates the politics of medical discoveries and medical research at one of South Africa's most prestigious medical research universities, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. Between 1966 and the 1980s, the Wits team became the most advanced and prolific kidney transplant unit in the country. Yet the racist, oppressive Apartheid system fundamentally shaped these developments. Transplantation, as this paper shows, became an elite medical procedure, performed by a select group of white doctors on mostly white patients. For these doctors, transplantation showed their medical prowess and displayed the technical advancements they were able to make in research and clinical practice as they strove to position South Africa as a significant international player in medical research, despite academic boycotts and increasing sanctions. Transplantation became a symbol of white supremacy in a country where the black majority were excluded from anything but the most basic health care.

Splintered politics of memory and community resistance.

Oral history presents an especially effective way of exploring the multitudinous, contradictory, and contextual meanings that are attached to the notion of community. In this study, we argue for narrative-discourse analysis as a critical means of studying contested community memories. We rely on focus group discussions and individual interviews to explore oral histories of state-sanctioned relocation of residents of Thembelihle, a low-income community in Johannesburg, South Africa. Our analysis revealed the sharply splintered politics that characterizes oral histories of this community. We argue that oral histories, in their contradictory and visceral fullness, are able to point toward a politics of resistance that is sensitive to inequalities, and that are willed toward emancipatory future-building. We conclude by underlining the need for community psychologists to engage with a politics of memory that is sensitive to power differentials, historiography, and broader currents of oppression.

Secular decline in limb bone strength among South African Africans during the 19th and 20th centuries.

OBJECTIVES: South African Africans have been reported to have experienced negative or null secular trends in stature and other measures of skeletal structure across the 19th and 20th centuries, presumably due to poor living conditions during a time of intensifying racial discrimination. Here, we investigate whether any secular trend is apparent in limb bone strength during the same period. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cadaver-derived skeletons (n = 221) were analyzed from female and male South African Africans who were born between 1839 and 1970, lived in and around Johannesburg, and died between 1925 and 1991 when they were 17-90 years of age. For each skeleton, a humerus and femur were scanned using computed tomography, and mid-diaphyseal cross-sectional geometric properties were calculated and scaled according to body size. RESULTS: In general linear mixed models accounting for sex, age at death, and skeletal element, year of birth was a significant (p < .05) negative predictor of size-standardized mid-diaphyseal cortical area (a proxy for resistance to axial loading) and polar moment of area (a proxy for resistance to bending and torsion), indicating a temporal trend toward diminishing limb bone strength. No significant interactions were detected between year of birth and age at death, suggesting that the decline in limb bone strength was mainly due to changes in skeletal maturation rather than severity of age-related bone loss. DISCUSSION: Limb bone strength is thus potentially another feature of the skeletal biology of South African Africans that was compromised by poor living conditions during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Queering the history of South African psychology: From apartheid to LGBTI+ affirmative practices.

This article constructs a brief history of how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) issues have intersected with South African psychology at key sociopolitical moments, filling a gap in current histories. Organized psychology-a primary focus of this analysis-since its first formations in 1948, mostly colluded with apartheid governments by othering queerness as psychopathology or social deviance. The National Party, both homophobic and racist, ruled the country from 1948 until the first democratic elections in 1994. The acceleration of antiapartheid struggles in the 1980s saw progressive psychologists develop more critical forms of theory and practice. However, LGBTI+ issues remained overshadowed by the primary struggle for racial equality and democracy. Psychology's chameleon-like adaptation to evolving eras resulted in a unified organization when apartheid ended: the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA). Democratic South Africa's Constitution took the bold step of protecting sexuality as a fundamental human right, galvanizing a fresh wave of LGBTI+ scholarship post-1994. However, LGBTI+ people still suffered prejudice, discrimination, and violence. Additionally, psychology training continued to ignore sexual orientation and gender-affirmative health care in curricula. PsySSA therefore joined the International Psychology Network for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Issues (IPsyNet) in 2007, catalyzing the PsySSA African LGBTI+ Human Rights Project in 2012 and two pioneering publications: a position statement on affirmative practice in 2013, and practice guidelines for psychology professionals working with sexually and gender-diverse people in 2017. This article traces a neglected history of South African psychology, examining the political, social, and institutional factors that eventually enabled the development of LGBTI+ affirmative psychologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Building a mental hospital in apartheid South Africa.

In April 1962, a new mental hospital was inaugurated in Belville, a town near Cape Town, South Africa. Stikland Mental Hospital was planned as mental health care was changing with the introduction of psychotropic drugs and renewed debates about deinstitutionalization-and as the South African legislature formalized the system known as "apartheid." This article focuses on this hospital, which embodied many global ideas about treatment and management of the mentally ill but which also incorporated the local politics of strict racial segregation. It had been planned in response to overcrowded mental hospitals in the 1950s, but by the time it opened, new forms of treatment had produced a surplus of beds for White patients. Architecturally, the hospital was conceived with the general principles of the villa plan in mind, although utilitarian aspects, such as patient and staff numbers, gardens, and budgets, dominated the design of the buildings. The public relations exercises undertaken highlight the negotiations involved in building a mental hospital in 1960s South Africa, but the example of Stikland also showcases new plans for research and training in mental health professions in the 1960s and 1970s. Disciplines such as clinical psychology benefited from the professional training opportunities provided. Overall, Stikland Mental Hospital therefore provides an important perspective on deinstitutionalization outside its familiar settings and historical accounts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Pharmaceuticals and modern statecraft in South Africa: the cases of opium, thalidomide and contraception.

This article provides a history of three pharmaceuticals in the making of modern South Africa. Borrowing and adapting Arthur Daemmrich's term 'pharmacopolitics', we examine how forms of pharmaceutical governance became integral to the creation and institutional practices of this state. Through case studies of three medicaments: opium (late 19th to early 20th century), thalidomide (late 1950s to early 1960s) and contraception (1970s to 2010s), we explore the intertwining of pharmaceutical regulation, provision and consumption. Our focus is on the modernist imperative towards the rationalisation of pharmaceutical oversight, as an extension of the state's bureaucratic and ideological objectives, and, importantly, as its obligation. We also explore adaptive and illicit uses of medicines, both by purveyors of pharmaceuticals, and among consumers. The historical sweep of our study allows for an analysis of continuities and changes in pharmaceutical governance. The focus on South Africa highlights how the concept of pharmacopolitics can usefully be extended to transnational-as well as local-medical histories. Through the diversity of our sources, and the breadth of their chronology, we aim to historicise modern pharmaceutical practices in South Africa, from the late colonial era to the Post-Apartheid present.

¿Existe el apartheid en la ciencia moderna? / Is there apartheid in modern science?

Hace dos años lancé una pregunta en la plataforma ResearchGate. ¿Existe el apartheid en la ciencia moderna? Curiosamente hubo solamente dos respuestas bastante ambiguas, aparte de un mensaje privado incriminándome que me enviaron y que me aguó una celebración de fin de año. Cada cual interpreta los hechos de manera diferente y mi manera de interpretar la reacción a aquella pregunta es que, lejos de no interesarle a nadie, el tema es tan delicado que pocos se atreven a abordarlo. Lo que planteara en aquel momento como una pregunta, para mí aún no ha encontrado respuesta. Al parecer, en una amplia porción de la llamada comunidad científica sí existe el apartheid. Fuera de las revistas cubanas y un número muy limitado de publicaciones, si no se pagan cifras que oscilan entre 300 USD y 2000 USD, es imposible publicar un artículo en una revista de alto impacto. Con las demandas de calidad editorial actuales, los que pueden pagar, encontrarán un corrector editorial que hará el servicio por algo así como 100 USD. Por otra parte, no nos llamemos a engaño: las mejores publicaciones en cuanto a originalidad, calidad y capacidad para brindar nuevas ideas, enfoques y conocimientos, están precisamente en las llamadas revistas de alto impacto, salvo excepciones, por supuesto. Al mismo tiempo, en esas revistas no es infrecuente encontrar trabajos que no sé si serían aceptados en la más humilde de nuestras revistas. A modo de ejemplo, la revista prestigiosa New England Journal of Medicine publicó un trabajo en 2012 donde se analiza la correlación entre consumo de chocolate y la cantidad de premios Nobel de cada...(AU)

¿Existe el apartheid en la ciencia moderna? / Is there apartheid in modern science?

Hace dos años lancé una pregunta en la plataforma ResearchGate. ¿Existe el apartheid en la ciencia moderna? Curiosamente hubo solamente dos respuestas bastante ambiguas, aparte de un mensaje privado incriminándome que me enviaron y que me aguó una celebración de fin de año. Cada cual interpreta los hechos de manera diferente, y mi manera de interpretar la reacción a aquella pregunta es que, lejos de no interesarle a nadie, el tema es tan delicado que pocos se atreven a abordarlo. Lo que planteara en aquel momento como una pregunta, para mí aún no ha encontrado respuesta. Al parecer, en una amplia porción de la llamada comunidad científica sí existe el apartheid. Fuera de las revistas cubanas y un número muy limitado de publicaciones, si no se pagan cifras que oscilan entre 300 USD y 2000 USD, es imposible publicar un artículo en una revista de alto impacto. Con las demandas de calidad editorial actuales, los que pueden pagar, encontrarán un corrector editorial que hará el servicio por algo así como 100 USD. Por otra parte, no nos llamemos a engaño: las mejores publicaciones en cuanto a originalidad, calidad y capacidad para brindar nuevas ideas, enfoques y conocimientos, están precisamente en las llamadas revistas de alto impacto, salvo excepciones, por supuesto. Al mismo tiempo, en esas revistas no es infrecuente encontrar trabajos que no sé si serían aceptados en la más humilde de nuestras revistas. A modo de ejemplo, la revista prestigiosa New England Journal of Medicine publicó un trabajo en 2012 donde se analiza la correlación entre consumo de chocolate y la cantidad de premios Nobel de cada...(AU)

[«I stole with my eyes¼: Hamilton Naki, a pioneer in heart transplantation]. / «I stole with my eyes¼: Hamilton Naki, pionero en el trasplante de corazón.

On December 2, 1967, when Denise Darvall was hit by a car, a surgery that made medical history was unfold: Hamilton Naki, a black man, expertly removed her heart and gave it to Christian Barnard, who was preparing the receptor, Louis Washkansky, in an adjacent operating room. Naki's contribution was an outlaw act, a criminal offense under the laws of apartheid due to the difference of races; the law forbade him to cut white meat or touch white blood. Naki was perhaps the second most important man in the team that day. There were few photographs where he and Barnard appeared together, but because of the nature of society was Barnard who won the world's attention.

Psychology and health after apartheid: Or, Why there is no health psychology in South Africa.

As part of a growing literature on the histories of psychology in the Global South, this article outlines some historical developments in South African psychologists' engagement with the problem of "health." Alongside movements to formalize and professionalize a U.S.-style "health psychology" in the 1990s, there arose a parallel, eclectic, and more or less critical psychology that contested the meaning and determinants of health, transgressed disciplinary boundaries, and opposed the responsibilization of illness implicit in much health psychological theorizing and neoliberal discourse. This disciplinary bifurcation characterized South African work well into the postapartheid era, but ideological distinctions have receded in recent years under a new regime of knowledge production in thrall to the demands of the global market. The article outlines some of the historical-political roots of key trends in psychologists' work on health in South Africa, examining the conditions that have impinged on its directions and priorities. It raises questions about the future trajectories of psychological research on health after 20 years of democracy, and argues that there currently is no "health psychology" in South Africa, and that the discipline is the better for it.