Reifying human difference: The debate on genetics, race, and health
Reifying human difference: The debate on genetics, race, and health
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DOI：
10.2190/8jaf-d8ed-8wpd-j9wh
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发表时间：
2006-01-01
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Braun, Lundy
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Braun, Lundy
近年来，健康方面种族和族裔不平等的原因以及解决健康不平等问题的最适当类别一直是激烈辩论的主题。与此同时，自宣布人类基因组测序以来，对种族差异的遗传解释在科学和大众媒体上占据了突出的位置。为了理解这些解释是如何突出的，本文分析了关于种族和遗传学的思想的循环，以及关键文本的作者使用的修辞策略来塑造这场辩论。作者认为，基因解释疾病的种族和民族差异的权威植根于一种广泛的文化信仰，即基因有望解决人类疾病的问题，以及与种族相关的历史意义交织在一起的人类内在真理。这种说法存在问题的原因有很多。重要的是，它们产生、具体化和自然化了种族差异的概念，为以种族为目标的医疗保健提供了科学的理由，并转移了人们对探索政治、经济、社会和生物因素，特别是不平等和种族主义因素导致健康差异的复杂方式的研究的注意力。
The causes of racial and ethnic inequalities in health and the most appropriate categories to use to address health inequality have been the subject of heated debate in recent years. At the same time, genetic explanations for racial disparities have figured prominently in the scientific and popular press since the announcement of the sequencing of the human genome. To understand how such explanations assumed prominence, this essay analyzes the circulation of ideas about race and genetics and the rhetorical strategies used by authors of key texts to shape the debate. The authority of genetic accounts for racial and ethnic difference in disease, the author argues, is rooted in a broad cultural faith in the promise of genetics to solve problems of human disease and the inner truth of human beings that is intertwined with historical meanings attached to race. Such accounts are problematic for a variety of reasons. Importantly, they produce, reify, and naturalize notions of racial difference, provide a scientific rationale for racially targeted medical care, and distract attention from research that probes the complex ways in which political, economic, social, and biological factors, especially those of inequality and racism, cause health disparities.