[Sci-tech-public] STS Circle, April 11th - Duana Fullwiley - (Please RSVP)

[Harvard STS]

*STS Circle at Harvard*
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*Duana Fullwiley*
*Anthropology, Harvard*
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on

*When State Economy and Population Biology Meet: The Powers of Association
and "Mild" Sickle Cell Anemia in Senegal, West Africa *
**
Monday, April 11th
12:15-2:00 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106

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Lunch is provided if you RSVP.
Please RSVP to sts <sts at hks.harvard.edu>@hks.harvard.edu<sts at hks.harvard.edu>
 by 5pm Thursday, April 7th.

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*Abstract:* In the 1980’s a research team led by Parisian scientists
discovered several unique DNA sequences (called genetic “haplotypes”) that
are consistently inherited with the sickle cell gene.  After casual
observations of how people managed this painful condition, they postulated
that the “Senegalese” type was less severe.  Importantly, however, these
scientists never investigated the many modalities of self-care that people
improvised in this context of biomedical scarcity.  Local doctors often
wittingly accepted the “Northern” genetic prognosis of better-than-expected
health outcomes for their patients (as the optimistic findings coincided
with dire cuts in Senegal’s heath sector during structural adjustment during
these same years).  Unlike many genetic determinisms that harden and
highlight the absoluteness of disease, DNA haplotypes for sickle cell in
Senegal did the opposite.  They allowed the condition to remain officially
so invisible as to never materialize as a health priority.


*Biography*: Duana Fullwiley is an anthropologist of science and medicine
whose research explores how personal identity, health status, and molecular
genetic findings increasingly intersect. She has recently completed her
first book, The *Enculturated Gene: Sickle Cell Health Politics and
Biological Difference in West Africa* (Princeton, 2011), which draws on
ethnographic fieldwork in the US, France and Senegal to assess locally
varied versions of sickle cell science and disease embodiment in Dakar.
 Since 2003, she has also conducted multi-sited field research in the United
States on emergent technologies that measure human genetic diversity among
populations and between individuals for health, forensic and humanistic
needs.  She has a Ph.D from the joint program in Medical Anthropology from
the University of California at Berkeley and UC San Francisco and has held
postdocs from the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation.  Currently she teaches in the departments of Anthropology and
African And African American Studies at Harvard.

A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/
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Samuel A. Evans, DPhil
Postdoctoral Fellow & Chair, STS Circle
Harvard University
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