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.