In the Blood: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race

Melbourne Tapper

University of Pennsylvania Press, £21.50, pp 160

ISBN 0 8122 34715

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“Race” is a concept that has occupied a prominent place in the American culture for centuries. In spite of being conceptually vague, the use of “race” in health research has a long and sometimes disturbing history. Currently, thousands of publications exist on black-white differences in behaviour and disease patterns. Most anthropologists have rejected the traditional Western notion of race—as bounded, identifiable biological groups—both as a research tool and as a valid representation of biological diversity Nevertheless, the racialisation of disease continues to be a pervasive practice, risking the …