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- Convenors:
-
Gregory Hollin
(University of Sheffield)
Ros Williams (University of Sheffield)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Thursday 20 January, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel foreground grounds matters of 'complicity' in medical anthropological research. Complicity here might take the form of the (perhaps unwitting, potentially unavoidable) reproductions of problematic exclusions, inequalities, or claims that might emerge out of research practice.
Long Abstract:
In what ways might medical anthropologists engage in forms of 'complicity'? The term has anchored a critique of researcher-stakeholder 'rapport'; for Marcus, ethnography might be better understood as 'mutual complicity in one another's projects, which entails…complex feelings around similarly identified purposes that both converge and diverge'. Building on this, we use complicity as an explorative heuristic for thinking through the methodological politics of contemporary medical anthropological research. Complicity here might take the form of (perhaps unwitting, potentially unavoidable) reproductions of problematic exclusions/inequalities/claims.
For example, in the context of Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (or, CTE, cumulative damage caused by head trauma), most research is done with sportsmen - predominantly because of the ease of studying this sample. This is as true for ethnographers as epidemiologists, for in the UK it is challenging to secure access to relevant constituencies beyond predominantly male, white sports teams. Does this constitute complicity in, e.g., the erasure of domestic abuse victims within this research domain? Another example of complicity: this time at the intersection of race/biomedicine, where Black and Minority Ethnicity (BME) activists employ biologically essentialist tropes of race to encourage BME participation in biomedical projects. Participant observers may share sympathies with activists' political projects, whilst feeling uneasy about claims of race's essential nature. Does silence in the face of these claims amount to complicity in their propagation?
This panel discusses these matters and features presentations from authors contributing to a forthcoming edited collection on the topic.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 20 January, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
In our paper, we examine the ambivalent positionality of the international graduate student researcher as “other of the other” (Khan, 2005, p. 2025), and how diverse fields of power mediated interactions among various actors in the student's MA research process.
Paper long abstract:
Using a critical reflexive process (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Bourdieu, 1996), this paper identifies and examines issues of power, complicity and knowledge production as they emerged in the first author’s master’s research on migrant women farmers’ economic and reproductive health experiences in the middle-belt of Ghana. We examine the ambivalent positionality of the international graduate student researcher as “other of the other” (Khan, 2005, p. 2025), and how diverse fields of power, including the researcher’s educational institution and cultural norms regarding gender relations, mediated interactions among various actors in the research process. Specifically, we examine how the student researcher was complicit in reinforcing patriarchal standards, perpetuating western saviourism, and committing symbolic violence. Situating these reflexive findings in relation to insights from feminist postcolonial theories we highlight how power relations, gender, and social class informed these ambivalent complicities. Rather than erase/silence these tensions in the research process, we argue that such ambivalences may be an inevitable dimension of transnational knowledge creation, and thus it is imperative that researchers consider how their ambivalent positionalities and complicities may be navigated and leveraged most productively and with the least harm to research participants.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing my work on mental healthcare in China, I argue complicity can reveal how biopower sustains itself despite what it announces and how people make lives on the margins livable. Because complicity will never end, we should develop a methodology of strategic complicity in medical anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
To a certain extent, anthropologists thrive on complicity, not only because we need to build rapport with a wide array of stakeholders, but also because we tend to focus on local knowledges rejected by or hidden from the dominant formation. Especially in medical anthropology, complicity is needed to enter and understand lifeworlds that complicate biological norms, health policies, and formal medical ethics. This paper draws on my study of mental healthcare in China to reflect on what medical anthropologists can learn from complicities and how we can engage with them more consciously/conscientiously. Complicity took many shapes in my work: I was quiet when family caregivers falsely claimed welfare and healthcare resources, and when psychiatrists discussed ways to circumscribed the law and get someone hospitalized; I connected human rights defenders to ex-patients and helped some psychiatrists establish alternative service programs even when I did not completely agree with either group’s vision. These experiences show that complicity is useful in revealing how biopower sustains itself despite what it announces and how people make lives on the margins livable. As our knowledge of and foothold in the field grow, we should break with some of the complicities and build better worlds with our interlocutors, but we should also realize that complicity itself will never end, as changes are typically incremental, partial, and mediated by institutions. To borrow Gayatri Spivak’s (1988) term, we should develop a methodology of “strategic complicity” by both carefully and boldly choosing and building our alliances in medical anthropology.
Paper short abstract:
Cyanosis is often missed in dark skin due to being defined as bluish-looking skin. Concern over genetic-based racism causes restraint in researching and communicating "ethnic" variables in health. Thus, medical anthropology may unwittingly help to maintain harmful forms skin colour-based knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
Cyanosis is commonly defined in medical education and reference sources as a bluish discoloration to the skin due to deoxygenated hemoglobin. This definition characterizes cyanosis as a condition that is at least in part identified by the colour of an individual’s skin. While bluish tones can be easily seen in individuals with light coloured skin, the same is not necessarily true of individuals with dark skin. Although this problem has been recognized in biomedical research, lack of additional information causes cyanosis to often go undiagnosed in patients with darker skin.
In biomedicine and anthropology, the fear of possible misuses of medical knowledge related to genetic variation is always present. Thus, biological differences that are (or appear to be) tied to “ethnicity” are often omitted in favour of a universalized human body. As the bulk of medical knowledge production continues to centre on patients of European descent, people with darker skin continue to endure more complications and inequalities in health.
Even in medical anthropology, the ideal discipline to tackle such complexities, research is still lacking. Although much caution is needed in acknowledging health disparities derived from genetic background, ignoring it continues to result in structural discrimination and harm. Therefore, medical anthropology remains complicit in allowing “whiteness” to be a default for the rest of humanity, or a standard against which everyone else is compared. This paper uses the example of cyanosis to explore how overlooking the role of “ethnicity” in medical conditions causes medical anthropology to perpetuate racialized systemic harm.