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Tied up in the Genes: Racial Biomedicine and the Politics of Knowledge in South Africa

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The Politics of Knowledge in the Biomedical Sciences

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Abstract

There can be little question that there has been a steady resurgence in racial science in recent years, more publicly in the field of human genetics (Segal & Kilty, 1998; Panofsky, 2014; Holmes, 2018; Saini, 2019a, 2019b). Gillborn (2016), for example, observed that “racial geneism has returned with a vengeance” (p. 366). Racial geneism is the belief that the genes shape the cognitive achievements, health outcomes etc. of a racial or ethnic group.

This chapter has benefitted greatly from engagements with leading scientists including Himla Soodyal, Ambroise Wonkam, Wieland Gevers, Eileen Hoal and other colleagues in human genetics at Stellenbosch University. This does not mean that they necessarily agree with one or more of the theses and conclusions presented. While grateful for critical commentary on this work, we as authors take sole responsibility for its content.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We understand that it is gene frequencies and genetic variations that are purported to explain health outcomes, not the genes as such. The term “the gene” is used here as a convenient shorthand for the aforementioned.

  2. 2.

    This is the working class Coloured area of Cape Town cordoned off for much of the SU research on tuberculosis.

  3. 3.

    We are conscious of the fact that archeology has been placed under both the social sciences and the natural sciences in different universities.

  4. 4.

    These are for the most part direct statements taken from different sections of the Bardien-Kruger, S. and Muller Nedebock, A., (2020), The role of genetics in racial categorization of humans. Faultlines: A primer on race, science and society. (Eds.) J.D Jansen and C.A. Walters. SUN Press.

  5. 5.

    Email correspondence from medical geneticist Ambroise Wonkam to one of us authors (Jonathan Jansen) on 28 May 2019.

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    Jonathan Jansen & Cyrill Walters

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    Jonathan Jansen

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Jansen, J., Walters, C. (2023). Tied up in the Genes: Racial Biomedicine and the Politics of Knowledge in South Africa. In: Jansen, J., Auerbach, J. (eds) The Politics of Knowledge in the Biomedical Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31913-6_5

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