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Biomedical Ambiguity: Race, Asthma, and the Contested Meaning of Genetic Research in the Caribbean - Softcover

Whitmarsh, Ian

 
9780801474415: Biomedical Ambiguity: Race, Asthma, and the Contested Meaning of Genetic Research in the Caribbean
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0801474418 ISBN 13: 9780801474415
Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Steadily increasing numbers of Americans have been diagnosed with asthma in recent years, attracting the attention of biomedical researchers, including those searching for a genetic link to the disease. The high rate of asthma among African American children has made race significant to this search for genetic predisposition. One of the primary sites for this research today is Barbados. The Caribbean nation is considered optimal because of its predominantly black population. At the same time, the government of Barbados has promoted the country for such research in an attempt to take part in the biomedical future.

In Biomedical Ambiguity, Ian Whitmarsh describes how he followed a team of genetic researchers to Barbados, where he did fieldwork among not only the researchers but also government officials, medical professionals, and the families being tested. Whitmarsh reveals how state officials and medical professionals make the international biomedical research part of state care, bundling together categories of disease populations, biological race, and asthma. He points to state and industry perceptions of mothers as medical caretakers in genetic research that proves to be inextricable from contested practices around nation, race, and family. The reader's attention is drawn to the ambiguity in these practices, as researchers turn the plurality of ethnic identities and illness meanings into a science of asthma and race at the same time that medical practitioners and families make the opaque science significant to patient experience. Whitmarsh shows that the contradictions introduced by this "misunderstanding" paradoxically enable the research to move forward.

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About the Author

Ian Whitmarsh is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Cornell University Press
Publication date
2008
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0801474418
ISBN 13 
9780801474415
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
240