Making the Mexican Diabetic: Race, Science, and the Genetics of Inequality / Edition 1

by Michael Montoya

Overview

This innovative ethnographic study animates the racial politics that underlie genomic research into type 2 diabetes, one of the most widespread chronic diseases and one that affects ethnic groups disproportionately. Michael J. Montoya follows blood donations from “Mexican-American” donors to laboratories that are searching out genetic contributions to diabetes. His analysis lays bare the politics and ethics of the research process, addressing the implicit contradiction of undertaking genetic research that reinscribes race’s importance even as it is being demonstrated to have little scientific validity. In placing DNA sampling, processing, data set sharing, and carefully crafted science into a broader social context, Making the Mexican Diabetic underscores the implications of geneticizing disease while illuminating the significance of type 2 diabetes research in American life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520267312
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/18/2011
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Michael J. Montoya is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Chicano/Latino Studies & Public Health at the University of California, Irvine.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xiii

Introduction: Situating Problems of Knowledge 1

1 Biological or Social: Allelic Variation and the Making of Race in Single Nucleotide Polymorphism-Based Research 40

2 Genes and Disease on the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Science of State Formation in Diabetes Research 69

3 Purity and Danger: When One Stands for Many 91

4 Collaboration and Power: Processing Cultures and Culturing Data 112

5 Recruiting Race: The Commodification of Mexicana/o Bodies from the U.S.-Mexico Border 140

6 Bioethnic Conscription 157

Conclusion Beyond Reductionism: Bioethnicity and the Genetics of Inequality 179

Epilogue 191

Glossary 193

Notes 199

Bibliography 223

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

Timely. . . . [Montoya’s] critique that race and ethnicity are socially constructed is well taken.

Bridget K. Gormann Jrnl Of Sociology

“Timely. . . . [Montoya’s] critique that race and ethnicity are socially constructed is well taken.

American Jrnl Of Sociology - Bridget K. Gorman

"Timely. . . . [Montoya's] critique that race and ethnicity are socially constructed is well taken."--American Jrnl of Sociology

From the Publisher