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

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 225 pages
• Published by: Cornell University Press
• Edition: 2nd Edition July 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0801474418
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0801474415
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 11.2 ounces

Product Description
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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Back Cover Copy
"In Biomedical Ambiguity, Ian Whitmarsh makes an original and important contribution to the ongoing debate about the genetics of complex diseases and their 'racial' or 'hereditary' susceptibilities. His ethnographic insight into the process by which race, genes, and environmental factors are negotiated in small nations at the behest of large corporations and scientific research teams is important to understanding how such ideas, practices, and drugs are being marketed worldwide."--Rayna Rapp, New York University --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.