Decolonizing Genetic Science: The Thrifty Gene Theory, Aboriginal Health and Empowering Knowledges (2004)
Poudrier, Jennifer D. (Author)
Queen's University at Kingston (Canada)
Burfoot, Annette
Edition Details: Advisor: Burfoot, Annette
Physical Details: 204 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation is a decolonizing science study of the cultural construction of a biological entity, the thrifty gene theory, and its relationship to current Canadian research in the genetics of non-insulin diabetes (NIDDM) among Aboriginal peoples. The thrifty gene theory (Neel, 1962) is often used in scientific and health promotion discourse as the best way to explain the recent proliferation of NIDDM among Aboriginal populations globally. Following from the primary notion that genetic science, like all science is not culture-free, but rather full of culture, this research aimed to explore and assess the existence of the thrifty gene from a decolonizing perspective. The decolonizing strategy here involved: centering indigenous epistemologies; critically understanding and challenging Euro-western science; and revitalizing indigenous knowledge systems geared toward the larger project of self- determination. This research involved a textual analysis of the scientific publications that make up the thrifty gene theory and those that make up the Sandy Lake research. The primary finding is that the thrifty gene is produced and reiterated from a eugenic and neo-colonial perspective. This perspective produced a type of knowledge wherein political, economic and historical conditions (namely colonization) become naturalized or fixed. Where the colonization is treated as fixed and natural, the Aboriginal body becomes unfixed and the body, or more specifically problematic Aboriginal genes, becomes the site of curative transformation. This shift seems to be responsible for the way in which, despite the influence of unfixable and natural genes, individual bodies and personal immoralities are necessarily blamed for illness. The implications are that the devastating and long-standing effects of colonization are never really accepted as the root cause of NIDDM and the genetic-fix argument thrives. Genetic knowledge claims may not be accurate in terms of the populations they describe and they may not be useful in terms of the clinical application of knowledge regarding the effects of diabetes. These knowledge claims may be harmful, not only by stigmatizing the peoples that they describe, but also by spear-heading an avenue for future race-related genetic research and treatment.
...MoreDescription On “the thrifty gene theory, and its relationship to current Canadian research in the genetics of non-insulin diabetes among Aboriginal peoples.” (from the abstract) Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 65/05 (2004): 1991. UMI pub. no. NQ92410.
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