TY - BOOK AU - Fullwiley,Duana TI - The Enculturated Gene: Sickle Cell Health Politics and Biological Difference in West Africa SN - 9780691123172 AV - RA645.S53 F85 2017 U1 - 362.1961527009663 23 PY - 2011///] CY - Princeton, NJ : PB - Princeton University Press, KW - Genetic disorders KW - Social aspects KW - Senegal KW - HEALTH & KW - FITNESS KW - Diseases KW - General KW - Health Care Issues KW - HISTORY KW - Africa KW - West KW - Kinship KW - Health aspects KW - MEDICAL KW - Health Care Delivery KW - Health Policy KW - Public Health KW - SOCIAL SCIENCE KW - Disease & KW - Health Issues KW - Sickle cell anemia KW - Genetic aspects KW - Patients KW - Services for KW - SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social KW - bisacsh KW - African anthropology KW - African genetics KW - African sicklers KW - Albert Royer Children's Hospital KW - CNTS KW - Centre nationale de transfusion sanguine KW - DNA haplotypes KW - DNA sequences KW - HbAS KW - International Organization for the Fight against Sickle Cell KW - National Blood Transfusion Center KW - OILD KW - RFLP KW - Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism KW - Senegalese attitudes KW - Senegalese sickle cell KW - alternative care KW - biological expressions KW - biosocial politics KW - culture KW - disease experiences KW - disease expression KW - economic austerity KW - economically triaged care KW - ethnic population purity KW - fagara KW - genetic difference KW - genetic sequence KW - geneticists KW - global health problems KW - global health KW - healing practices KW - health intervention KW - health KW - healthy sicklers KW - heterozygous sickle cell KW - low-tech strategy KW - multilateral institutions KW - normalization techniques KW - patient advocacy KW - political apathy KW - population KW - public health KW - public neglect KW - self-care KW - sickle cell DNA markers KW - sickle cell anemia KW - sickle cell gene KW - sickle cell research KW - sickle cell trait KW - sicklers KW - social networks KW - traditional plants KW - vitality N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Illustrations --; Preface --; Acknowledgments --; Chapter one. Introduction: The Powers of Association --; Chapter two. Healthy Sicklers with "Mild" Disease: Local Illness Affects and Population- Level Effects --; Chapter three. The Biosocial Politics of Plants and People --; Chapter four. Attitudes of Care --; Chapter five. Localized Biologies: Mapping Race and Sickle Cell Difference in French West Africa --; Chapter six. Ordering Illness: Heterozygous "Trait" Suffering in the Land of the Mild Disease --; Chapter seven. The Work of Patient Advocacy --; Conclusion. Economic and Health Futures amid Hope and Despair --; Notes --; References --; Index; restricted access; Issued also in print N2 - In the 1980s, a research team led by Parisian scientists identified several unique DNA sequences, or haplotypes, linked to sickle cell anemia in African populations. After casual observations of how patients managed this painful blood disorder, the researchers in question postulated that the Senegalese type was less severe. The Enculturated Gene traces how this genetic discourse has blotted from view the roles that Senegalese patients and doctors have played in making sickle cell "mild" in a social setting where public health priorities and economic austerity programs have forced people to improvise informal strategies of care. Duana Fullwiley shows how geneticists, who were fixated on population differences, never investigated the various modalities of self-care that people developed in this context of biomedical scarcity, and how local doctors, confronted with dire cuts in Senegal's health sector, wittingly accepted the genetic prognosis of better-than-expected health outcomes. Unlike most genetic determinisms that highlight the absoluteness of disease, DNA haplotypes for sickle cell in Senegal did the opposite. As Fullwiley demonstrates, they allowed the condition to remain officially invisible, never to materialize as a health priority. At the same time, scientists' attribution of a less severe form of Senegalese sickle cell to isolated DNA sequences closed off other explanations of this population's measured biological success. The Enculturated Gene reveals how the notion of an advantageous form of sickle cell in this part of West Africa has defined--and obscured--the nature of this illness in Senegal today.Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400840410?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781400840410 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9781400840410.jpg ER -