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The Cultivation Of Whiteness: Science, Health, And Racial Destiny In Australia

01 Apr 2002-
TL;DR: The Cultivation of Whiteness examines the notions of "whiteness" and racism, and introduces a whole new framework for discussion of the development of medicine and science as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In nineteenth-century Australia, the main commentators on race and biological differences were doctors. But the medical profession entertained serious anxieties about the possibility of "racial denigration" of the white population in the new land, and medical and social scientists violated ethics and principles in pursuit of a more homogenized Australia. The Cultivation of Whiteness examines the notions of "whiteness" and racism, and introduces a whole new framework for discussion of the development of medicine and science. Warwick Anderson provides the first full account of the shocking experimentation in the 1920s and '30s on Aboriginal people of the central deserts--the Australian equivalent of the infamous Tuskegee Experiment. Lucid and entertaining throughout, this pioneering historical survey of ideas will help to reshape debate on race, ethnicity, citizenship, and environment everywhere.
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27 Apr 2009
TL;DR: In this article, anthropologist Adriana Petryna takes us deep into the clinical trials industry as it brings together players separated by vast economic and cultural differences, showing that neither the language of coercion nor that of rational choice fully captures the range of situations and value systems at work in medical experiments today.
Abstract: The phenomenal growth of global pharmaceutical sales and the quest for innovation are driving an unprecedented search for human test subjects, particularly in middle- and low-income countries. Our hope for medical progress increasingly depends on the willingness of the world's poor to participate in clinical drug trials. While these experiments often provide those in need with vital and previously unattainable medical resources, the outsourcing and offshoring of trials also create new problems. In this groundbreaking book, anthropologist Adriana Petryna takes us deep into the clinical trials industry as it brings together players separated by vast economic and cultural differences. Moving between corporate and scientific offices in the United States and research and public health sites in Poland and Brazil, When Experiments Travel documents the complex ways that commercial medical science, with all its benefits and risks, is being integrated into local health systems and emerging drug markets. Providing a unique perspective on globalized clinical trials, When Experiments Travel raises central questions: Are such trials exploitative or are they social goods? How are experiments controlled and how is drug safety ensured? And do these experiments help or harm public health in the countries where they are conducted? Empirically rich and theoretically innovative, the book shows that neither the language of coercion nor that of rational choice fully captures the range of situations and value systems at work in medical experiments today. When Experiments Travel challenges conventional understandings of the ethics and politics of transnational science and changes the way we think about global medicine and the new infrastructures of our lives.

428 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors proposes a model for analyzing the power of ideologies of communication in producing subjectivities, organizing them hierarchically, and recruiting people to occupy them, and compares this productive capacity, which is termed communicability, with schemes of racialization and medicalization.
Abstract: This review proposes a model for analyzing the power of ideologies of communication in producing subjectivities, organizing them hierarchically, and recruiting people to occupy them. By way of illustration, it compares this productive capacity, which is herein termed communicability, with schemes of racialization and medicalization. The argument draws on critical discourse analysis, conversational analysis, post-Habermasian research on publics, Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Foucault, and work on language ideologies to synthesize a framework for studying spheres of communicability. The concept is then used in exploring how constructions of race and health intersect in some of the most powerful spheres of communicability—those associated with colonial medicine, HIV/AIDS, severe accute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Alzheimer’s, genetics, clinical trials, “race-based medicine,” organ transplant, and biostatistics. The review attempts to connect linguistic anthropology and discourse analysis more productively to m...

259 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is advocated that history taking, that being Australia’s colonial, political, social and economic histories be a course of action undertaken by all health professionals working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Abstract: Australia's history is not often considered to be an indicator of any person's health status. However, as health professionals we are taught the importance of taking and listening to our client's detailed history to assist us in our comprehension of the issues impacting upon their lives. This skill base is an important one in that it makes available valuable information that assists the health professional to be discerning of intimate and specific circumstances that could contribute to health related problems not previously diagnosed. It is a vital screening tool. I would like to advocate that history taking, that being Australia's colonial, political, social and economic histories be a course of action undertaken by all health professionals working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Health researchers of recent years have been able to clearly illustrate that there is a powerful relationship between health status and individuals or collectives; social, political and economic circumstances (Marmot, 2011; Marmot & Wilkinson, 2001; Saggers & Gray, 2007). This way of knowing how health can be affected through such social health determinants is an important health competency (Anderson, 2007; Marmot, 2011). As such this paper delivers a timeline of specific historical and political events, contributing to current social health determinants that are undermining Indigenous Australians health and well-being. This has been undertaken because most Australians including Indigenous Australians have not benefited from a balanced and well informed historical account of the past 200 and something years. The implication of this lack of knowing unfortunately has left its effect on the way health service providers have delivered health to Indigenous children, mothers, fathers, and their communities. Indigenous Australians view the way forward in improving health outcomes, as active partners in their health service delivery. This partnership requires health professionals to listen to their clients, with respect and a decolonising gaze.

229 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how urban spaces and subjects were problematized in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and identify three forms of spatial rationality: dispositional, generative, and vitalist, in order to reveal the mobilization of spatial and environmental truth in the government of individuals and populations.
Abstract: Drawing on Foucault's notions of governmentality and governmental rationality, this paper examines how urban spaces and subjects were problematized in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Various practices aiming to foster appropriate subjectivities and regulate troublesome behaviours are informed by ‘operative rationales’ that ascribe to qualities of environments and spaces causal effects on the conduct of subjects. Three forms of spatial rationality are identified—dispositional, generative and vitalist—and each is illustrated with an exemplary instance, in order to reveal the mobilization of spatial and environmental ‘truths’ in the government of individuals and populations. Les rationalites spatiales: ordre, environnement, evolution et gouvernement C'est a partir des notions de la gouvernementalite et de la rationalite gouvernementale que cet article propose une exploration de la problematisation des espaces et sujets urbains au dix-neuvieme et au debut du vingtieme siecle. De nombreuses prati...

143 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the history of world health -the great 20th century reach of 19th-century health and hygiene - should be understood as a vital politics of population on a newly large field of play, and look seriously at the interwar period as a point at which "the world" (or Hardt and Negri's "Empire" was already challenging the idea of "inter/national".
Abstract: Many scholars have historicized biopolitics with reference to the emergence of sovereign nations and their colonial extensions over the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. This article begins to conceptualize and trace the history of biopolitics beyond the nation, arguing that the history of world health - the great 20th-century reach of 19th-century health and hygiene - should be understood as a vital politics of population on a newly large field of play. This substantive history of world health and world population is analysed as sites for thinking about global bio-politics; and the article looks seriously at the interwar period as a point at which ‘the world’ (or Hardt and Negri’s ‘Empire’) was already challenging the idea of ‘inter/national’.

96 citations