Whiteness & Health: Toward a New Research Agenda
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Despite almost two decades of research in the field of whiteness studies, there remains relatively little literature that explores the myriad connections between whiteness and health in the U.S. context. However, scholars working within a transnational, postcolonial framework have begun the work of “re-orienting whiteness” within a more global lens and, within this field, a portion of the work is concerned with how discourses, taxonomies, and technologies of science, health and medicine are used to do the work of whiteness and nation-building in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and former British colonies along the Pacific Rim
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Whiteness & Health: Toward a New Research Agenda
- 1. Whiteness & Health in Transnational Context: Toward a New Research Agenda Jessie Daniels, PhD CUNY-Graduate Center & Hunter College ASA - August 13, 2013 @JessieNYC #ASA13
- 3. colonialism, land & environmental health @JessieNYC #ASA13
- 8. whiteness & health disparities industry @JessieNYC #ASA13
- 13. “Whiteness obfuscates itself and its relationship to the particular traits it is said to embody, including temperance, rationality, bodily restraint, and industriousness.” (Dyer, 1988 p. 3). @JessieNYC #ASA13
- 14. @JessieNYC #ASA13 whiteness & the human genome
- 16. NIDA & the neuroscientific turn @JessieNYC #ASA13
- 19. @JessieNYC #ASA13 The dominant cultural image of “addiction”
- 22. whiteness is integral to health @JessieNYC #ASA13
- 23. @JessieNYC #ASA13 critique whiteness & foster resistance
Notas del editor
- Despite almost two decades of research in the field of whiteness studies, there remains relatively little literature that explores the myriad connections between whiteness and health in the U.S. context (Daniels and Schulz, 2006; Daniels, 2012; Katz Rothman, 2001; Jones, et al., 2008). Reading the colonial back into whiteness, as Anderson does, has significant implications for U.S. scholarship. The obfuscation of the “colonial” in U.S. whiteness studies reflects a failure to recognize a site of empire, especially for those (of us) who are both native-born and working within the U.S.
- The obfuscation of the “colonial” in U.S. whiteness studies reflects a failure to recognize a site of empire, especially for those (of us) who are both native-born and working within the U.SHowever, scholars working within a transnational, postcolonial framework (Anderson, 2006; Boucher, Carey, & Ellinghaus, 2009) have begun the work of “re-orienting whiteness” within a more global lens and, within this field, a portion of the work is concerned with how discourses, taxonomies, and technologies of science, health and medicine are used to do the work of whiteness and nation-building in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and former British colonies along the Pacific Rim.Reading the colonial back into whiteness, as Anderson does, has significant implications for U.S. scholarship.MY ARGUMENT:I’m making a theoretical argument that in material conditions that determine health, the scientific literature that analyzes health, the public health initiatives meant to improve health + the popular culture narratives we create + consume to about health - “race” is situated in and upon the bodies of formerly colonized and enslaved people, while those who enacted those regimes are left unmarked + unexamined + unnamed in those regimes of power.
- A key feature of emerging research on whiteness and health is a critical interrogation of colonialism (Anderson, 2006; Boucher, Carey & Ellinghaus, 2009). The myopic U.S.-centric focus of whiteness studies (Bonnett, 2008), is perhaps not surprising given the rise of whiteness studies in the U.S., but the consequence of this is that a critical analysis of the power of colonialism in shaping whiteness is missing from much of this literature. By foregrounding the importance of colonialism, scholars outside the U.S. emphasize the transnational dimensions of the historical trajectories of whiteness as a globalizing force (Boucher, Carey & Ellinghaus, 2009, pp.4, 6).
- The Australian context, for instance, has much to offer to understandings historical constructions of colonial whiteness. Scholars such as Warwick Anderson and Angela Woollacott have been drawing on the insights of both postcolonial and whiteness studies for some time. Woollacott focuses on the “specific forms of whiteness” produced in settler-colonial contexts, arguing that these have been “key sites” in the historical trajectory of whiteness in “white-settler colonies, there have been specific regimes in which whiteness itself accrued legislative, regulatory and cultural substance” (2009, p.23). “Colonial medicine” – sometimes referred to as “tropical medicine” – was a crucial mechanism in establishing this form of whiteness. Perhaps more precisely relevant here is the work of Warwick Anderson, whose groundbreaking book, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health, and Racial Destiny in Australia (2003), has set the parameters for all future research on whiteness and health. Anderson excavates historical records to detail the white settler-colonial period in Australia and charts the ways that whiteness was mapped onto the environment. For white colonizers, Australia appeared to be a hostile landscape for British bodies, and physicians recommended guidelines for diet, clothing, housing and hygiene in ways that were imbued with whiteness. It is within this context that scientific notions promulgated by physicians linked health to an Anglo-European Protestant ideal of civilized, moral conduct. Contrasting this ideal with the habits of allegedly germ-infested indigenous "colored races," physicians of “tropical medicine” called for the violent removal from land + “containment of” Aboriginal people and restricted immigration for Asians and Pacific Islanders (Anderson, 2003). TRANSITION: These In subsequent work on U.S. domination in the Philippines, Anderson strongly makes the case for the significance of colonialism for constructions of North American whiteness (Anderson, 2006). And, in an essay drawn from the convening at the University of Melbourne, he notes the way “whiteness travels” (Anderson, 2009). In other words, the notions of whiteness and disease prevention he documents in colonial Australia are strikingly similar to those ideas that circulated throughout the eugenics movement in the early 20th century Europe. The construction of whiteness in the U.S.-ruled Philippines contains circulations of nation-state whiteness in North America. I want to build on the insights of these about white settler-colonialism in Australia and the importance of land to construction of race in the U.S. to make the case for reframing some existing research in ways that might illuminate our understanding of whiteness and health.Image source: https://lists.cam.ac.uk/pipermail/ucam-histmed/2008-October/msg00012.html
- Reframing U.S. Research on Residential Segregation & Environmental Racism Residential segregation is rooted in whiteness & colonialism. There is an extensive literature in the U.S. context about residential segregation (e.g., Massey and Denton, 1993), yet only recently has this literature turned to explicitly examine the role of whiteness. Moreton-Robinson contends that U.S. scholars have located whiteness in relation to slavery and immigration, but generally not the dispossession of Native American peoples (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). This is mostly true, but there is some emerging work that begins to do just that. For example, David Chang’s excellent book, The Color of the Land (2010) brings together histories of Creek Indians, African Americans, and whites within the context of what was then “Indian Territory” and would in very short span of time become colonized as the state of Oklahoma. Chang explores the way races and nations were made and remade in conflicts over who would own land, who would farm it, and who would rule it, and makes a convincing argument that “land” is the unexplored concept in our understanding of race in the U.S. In her work, Setha Low (2003; 2009) examines the ways that gated communities serve to construct and maintainiwhiteness. Gated communities do this in two ways, Low argues. The first, is through the cultivation of the fear of others, and as she documents in extensive interviews, is part of what pushes people into such peculiar built environments. The second, Low contends, is the desire for “niceness,” is a relatively new construct within whiteness studies. The desire for “niceness” draws attention on the way people make moral and aesthetic judgments to control their social and physical environments. It also became apparent that fear of others, when combined with niceness, inscribes racist assumptions on the landscape. Thus, gated communities with private governance and a homeowners' association in the U.S. extend the work of colonialism – often quite literally – by creating and maintaining white spaces. Image source: http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/6/5/0/4/7/ar126399403374056.JPG
- This happens within the U.S. and extends, where English-speaking white people live in walled-off fortresses meant to “protect against” the surrounding indigenous population. There are implications for health from such landscapes.Source: http://www.gatedcommunitiescostarica.com/78-main-content/8-why-a-gated-communityFrom “Why a Gated Community?” Living in Costa Rica is a dream come true for many expats that have chosen to make Costa Rica their home.Costa Rica like any other Central American country has its fair share of crime which is why many people choose to live in a gated community or a condominium complex.However, more people today are choosing to live in private gated community in Costa Rica because it gives the homeowner a large array of advantages that a condominium owner could not enjoy.Advantages of Living in a Gated CommunitySafety and Security - Living in a gated community offers better safety for you and your family because the only people that are allowed to enter are guests of the residents of the community. On top of that, guests have to sign in when they enter the gated community adding extra protection to your loved ones.Amenities - They are many amenities to living in a gated communities which will often vary depending on each individual community. Here are some of the most common amenities available: Swimming PoolClub AreaGazeboTennis CourtsBarbecuePlaygroundsRules and Privacy - When you live in a gated community, if there is a problem with a neighbor you can just take it up with the gated community management. On top of that, usually rules are created within the community so that everyone will get along well and as part of the community, you are entitled to a vote when creating or changing these rules.
- I want to suggest a Reframing U.S.-based Research on Environmental Racism & Residential Segregation here within the lens of a postcolonial, transnational whiteness – and when we do that, I argue that it is easier to discern that, in fact, environmental racism is global and that the dynamics that drive the establishment of gated communities, also drive the transnational dumping of toxic waste from so-called “first world” nations of former colonial powers to developing nations. Reframing U.S. Research on Environmental Racism & Residential Segregation The concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice have been developed in the U.S. by scholar Robert Bullard in a series of publications spanning thirty years. These include Confronting Environmental Racism (1983), Dumping in Dixie, Third Edition (2000), and Highway Robbery (2004). Central to Bullard’s workis the idea that racial inequality gets inscribed into neighborhoods, cities, and entire regions in ways that are injurious to the health of residents in those areas…. As when communities of color are “chosen” for the location of toxic waste facilities is a frequently cited instance of environmental racism. This form of inequality is layered upon other forms of institutional racism. “Britain is accused of flouting international law by dumping toxic industrial and medical waste in Brazil and Ghana, the Times of London reports. Brazilian authorities were outraged to find over 1,000 tons of hazardous waste in 90 shipping containers labeled as holding recyclable plastic. Toxic British waste has also been found in Ghana, where discarded computers from the UK's Ministry of Defense were discovered in a dump where children dismantle electric waste for parts, exposing themselves to toxic chemicals.” Source: http://www.newser.com/story/64705/uk-slammed-for-dumping-toxic-waste-in-developing-world.html
- Whiteness & the Health Disparities IndustryMuch of public health is driven by a concern with, and research on, ‘health disparities.’ Yet, the research on ‘health disparities’ (or, sometimes ‘racial disparities’) neither focuses on whiteness nor on the ways that racism plays a role in health. The logic of health disparities flows in the following way: “The literature on racial disparities in health by definition involves comparisons across groups defined by some racial classification system. Perhaps the most common of these comparisons take the form of the following general proposition: [Black/Hispanic/Native American] [children or adults] have higher rates of [the condition, disease, or 'disability' under investigation] than whites, primarily because of [explanatory variable]” (Daniels and Schulz, 2006, p.97).There is a vast amount of scholarly literature transnationally built upon this formulation. The equation is always the same: measure some health outcome (e.g., rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS) in “minority” populations and compare it to the rates in the white population. To be sure, it is indeed important to focus on the social injustice carried in the bodies of indigenous and historically oppressed racial/ethnic groups because they carry a disproportionate burden when it comes to health. Within the context of the U.S. health regime, indigenous, black and Latino people experience more exposure to carcinogens other disease-producing agents along with less than equal access to care and treatment than do their white counterparts, and that is, as Joe Feagin suggests, among the many costs of racism. …some of these costs are embodied. However, the conventional formulation for describing racial health disparities, set out above, in fact reinscribes an essentialistwhiteness in our understanding of health.Whiteness, or more specifically, the health of white people, is the unspoken standard to which indigenous, black and Latino people are compared, again and again, on every measure of health and found wanting. While the goal of health disparities research is to highlight “social determinants of health” – by which researchers mean structural causes of inequality such as poverty, which adversely affect health outcomes – in fact, the language of health disparities reinforces notions of individual health behavior rooted in “racial difference.” Such research has quite literally become an industry, with huge network of professionals representing many specialties and organizations offering a variety of products and services; and, some have begun to question the ethics of such an industry (Shaw-Ridley and Ridley 2010). What is called for, I would argue, is an interrogation of the way that whiteness is implicated in the health disparities industry and an analysis of the deployment of the white racial frame in explaining such disparities.Further, see: http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2011/03/09/racism-whiteness-and-health/
- Alongside the passive voice construction of most ‘health disparities’ literature, there is are growing body of transnational evidence in that supports the claim that racism is a significant contributing factor to ill health. In the North American context, research from a 13-year (1979-1992) panel study found that among the sample (N=623), experiences of racism were inversely related to subjective well-being and positively associated with the number of reported physical health problems (Jackson, et al., 1996). In the Australian context, Paradies and colleagues (Paradies, Harris & Anderson 2008) have documented that indigenous Australians and Māori have higher levels of ill health and mortality than non-Indigenous people, and have linked this to both historical colonization and contemporary racism. Moreover, in a systematic review of 138 empirical quantitative population-based studies of self-reported racism and health conducted in 2006, the research showed that there was an association between self-reported racism and ill health for oppressed racial groups transnationally (Paradies, 2006).Yet, even in this research which, to be clear, is a significant step forward from the ‘health disparities’ frame, there is a pernicious sleight-of-hand that reveals the persistence of the whiteness. That is, the majority of this research in the North American context about racism and health focuses entirely on the present (ignoring slavery and colonization) and on “perceptions” of racism, as “perceived racism” or “self-reports of racism.” In contrast, at least some of the research in the Australian context acknowledges the reality of colonization and of ongoing racism and oppression. This is due, in part, to the very different political context Australia which has enshrined both an ‘adequate state of health’ and ‘freedom from racism’ as legal rights of all citizens; the U.S. has no such protections for its citizens.Clearly, there are unequal health outcomes that need to be addressed transnationally. On almost every measure, there is a health benefit to being white (Jones, et al. 2008).In the U.S., those who are Native American, Black and Latino will die sooner than those who are white (e.g., Budrys, 2003; State Health Facts, 2009). In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and former British colonies, measures on almost every disease such as cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, finds that indigenous people and their descendants are vulnerable to disease and more likely to die earlier than the descendants of white colonial settlers living in the same national or regional context. In a very material way, such data illustrates the way inequality, and particular racial inequality gets under the skin. However, looking only at those who must pay these costs as both the source and solution to these problems is misguided. As Camara Jones and colleagues in their discussion of the “white advantage in health” observe: “… the health effects of ‘whiteness’ in this country [the U.S.] have rarely been discussed. … Perhaps racial health disparities are not due just to the disadvantages experienced by members of non-White groups but also to the advantages experienced by White people. These may include the benefit of the doubt, the high expectations, the trust, the laxity in enforcing the same rules with which non-White people must strictly comply, the day-to-day breaks which White people often experience as ‘luck’ or never even notice, and the sense of entitlement. (Jones, et al., 2008, p.501).”I contend that we must critically examine whiteness, and those who benefit from it, for the ways that they contribute to and benefit from the inequality in health outcomes. Image Left Source: http://dhmh.maryland.gov/mhhd/SitePages/Home.aspxImage Right Source: http://elibrarygroups.health.nt.gov.au/content.php?pid=157366&sid=1332401
- The long tail of the health disparities industry … and its impact on historically oppressed & indigenous people is perhaps nowhere more clear than in the volumes written about “obesity” in the US + beyond. I contend that there is a particular way in which communities of (formerly) colonized + historically oppressed communiites – and in particular, women in those communities – are made to share an additional burden of stigma about obesity. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-obesity-ess.html
- This – from Australia – about the “poor indigenous diet.” Source: http://www.indigenousportal.com/Health/Poor-Indigenous-diets.html
- And, this incredibly painful episode of Jillian Michaels’ show (a celebrity fitness trainer – most well known for ‘Biggest Loser’ role) – in which she literally tosses out an entire serving dish of “frybread” at a family gathering in the Yavapai Apache Nation. As Michaels’ tosses out the frybread, she yells – her trademark – at the Yavapai people there that “this is killing you,” with a mix of exasperation and desperation. While some Yavapai defend the frybread as “traditional” Indian food – Michaels is little interested in this defense – is that this “tradition” is actually traceable to the dispossession of land and colonial practices of the U.S. government against indigenous people, including the Yavapai. When the U.S. government forced native peoples off their land, and away from any way to forge their own survival, the government choraled entire nations on “reservations” and gave them white flour and lard to subsist on. The “tradition” of frybread grew out of this history. http://www.thatsfit.com/2010/07/07/losing-it-with-jillian-toss-the-indian-fry-bread/
- At least part of this quest for ‘health’ that is touted in the makeover shows is tied to a bodily ideal is rooted in notions of ‘whiteness’ and the ‘particular traits it is said to embody, including temperance, rationality, bodily restraint + industriousness.’ Extending Metzl and Kirkland, as well as our understanding of whiteness, I’d argue that there is a way in which morality and whiteness map onto each other in pop culture pursuits of health.
- Whiteness and the Human Genome Bliss, Race Decoded, pp.14-5: “While whiteness continues to hold a ‘cash’ value that encourages whites to ‘remain true to an identity that provides them with resources, power and opportunity,’ the white and nonwhite scientists described here struggle for the chance to redefine human taxonomy. Indeed, they believe genomics should hold the monopoly on ascertaining human categories. The white scientists in elite genomics laboratories are more invested in proliferating a positive sense of blackness than in protecting the biological semblance of whiteness.” Then, whiteness never addressed again in her book.
- The HGP resonates with neoliberal whiteness projects as it simultaneously validates the human genetic material across races, while it simultaneously elevates the individual. This is particularly evident in both the sampling for the HGP and the claims based on those samples. Rarely mentioned in the literature, and even less often scrutinized, are the samples and the sampling strategy used in the Human Genome Project and the associated private ventures on which this claim of “shared humanity” is based. Scientists working on the HGP from both the academic consortium and the privately funded biotechnology firms originally proposed to include a “diverse” sample of DNA for mapping the human genome: that is, chromosomal samples taken from people of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. For example, the website for the academic consortium responsible for the Human Genome Project in the U.S. indicates that “candidates were recruited from a diverse population” (http://www.genome.gov/11006943). The private effort to map the human genome led by the biotech firm Celera, claimed to be using an even more deliberately “diverse” chromosomal sample. Venter and others (2001) write, “Celera and the IRB believed that the initial version of a completed human genome should be a composite derived from multiple donors of diverse ethnic backgrounds” (Venter and others, 2001:1306). DNA samples were collected from 21 volunteer male and female donors who self-identified their racial/ethnic category (Venter and others, 2001:1306). From those 21 donors, DNA was reportedly selected from five subjects (one African American, one Asian Chinese, one Hispanic Mexican, and two Caucasians, two of whom were male and three female (Venter and others, 2001:1307). The decision about whose DNA to sequence was said to be based on “a complex mix of factors, including the goal of achieving diversity, as well as technical issues such as the quality of the DNA libraries and availability of immortalized cell lines” (Venter and others, 2001:1307). Thus, both the academic consortium and the private firm involved in mapping the human genome originally sought to include DNA from people of diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds as well as gender. Upon completion of 90% of the mapping project, Collins of the NHGRI and Venter of Celera—former competitors in the race to map the human genome—held a joint press conference with President Clinton to announce the completion of a “rough draft of the human genome” (Wade, 2000), ostensibly on this diverse sample of DNA. However, both the academic HGP and the privately funded mapping project were criticized for not selecting a sample that is diverse enough to serve as the map of the human genome (Jackson, 1997). Genomics scholar Fatima Jackson called for separate genetic studies of Africans directed by Africans and African Americans (Jackson, 1997). In point of fact, the chromosomal reference samples for the academic HGP were taken from “sixty-seven northern American and northern European men” with a large portion oversampled from Utah (Stevens, 2002:110). As for the private venture at Celera, after the project was completed, Celera’s CEO Craig Venter revealed the mapping that his firm had done had not been on the “diverse” chromosomal sample of donated DNA but rather on his (Venter’s) own DNA (Wade, 2002a). Explaining the use of his own DNA, Venter cited both “privacy concerns” for volunteers who submitted DNA to the project and his curiosity about the uniqueness of his own DNA (Wade, 2002a). The point of noting this discrepancy here between the claim of shared genetic universality and the reality of an extremely limited sampling diversity (to vastly understate the case) of DNA actually used for mapping the human genome is to raise one of the central dilemmas for those interested in critically engaging the biomedical literature and the construction of whiteness. On the one hand, charging that the DNA sample was not “diverse enough” across racial and ethnic groups presumes that there are significant genetic racial differences between groups that should be studied. Indeed, Fatimah Jackson’s argument, against applicability of the heavily North American and northern European sample of the HGP to people who are descendants of African ancestors, is a persuasive one (1997). However, this critique of the limited genome sample, while powerful, does little to upend the reliance on biologically based notions of racial taxonomies that suggests, as in the Australian context, that white people are “unsuited” to tropical climates and thus more susceptible to indigenous “colored diseases.” Such an argument leaves the normativity of whiteness unexamined by calling for further mapping of ostensibly genetically distinct racial groupings rather than interrogating the notion that whiteness is a homogenous and genetically discreet category. On the other hand, accepting the use of a limited, and predominantly white, DNA sample as “the map” of “all humankind” once again morphs whiteness into that which is universally human, as Troy Duster has pointed out (Duster, 2001). In a very real sense, then, the mapping of the human genome is both a universal appeal to “humankind” and is based on the DNA of a putatively white genome. Yet this is rarely explicitly stated or called into question in discussions of genomics. Given the pervasiveness of whiteness as a racialized norm in the U.S., it is not surprising that a map constructed from the DNA of northern Europeans and Americans is assumed to represent “the human” genome (Cross, 2001:435). The whiteness of the genome is now a closed epistemic (if it was ever open), as the mapping of the genome has now moved into a prior historical epoch. Since the completion of the mapping project, biomedical scientists and scholars of science and technology studies have noted a shift away from the genomic, marking what many refer to as the post-genomic era (Wailoo, Nelson, & Lee, 2012).
- Now, biomedical research has taken what Littlefield and Johnson refer to as the neuroscientific turn (Littlefield & Johnson, 2012) in which “brain science” is regarded as the leading edge of biomedical research. Whiteness & the Neuroscientific Turn Like other paradigms before it (e.g., genetics), neuroscience is shaping new subjects and providing new contours to the ways in which individuals are governed (Campbell, 2010; Fullagar, 2009; Rose, 2010; Vrecko, 2010; Vrecko, 2010b). One of the most fruitful domains in health in which to see the neuroscientific turn laid bare is in within the field of addiction (Netherland, 2011). The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), is the main funder of addiction research in the U.S., and it is also one of the engines driving much of the scientific and popular discourse about addiction as a brain disease (Courtwright, 2010). In 2003, Nora Volkow, a prominent neuroscientist who pioneered the use of PET scans in addiction research, became the Director of NIDA, and since then she has led the institution in promulgating the notion that “addiction is a brain disease.”
- Nora Volkoh has led the neuroscientific turn at NIDA – which has meant a huge increase in funding for brain research, and a simultaneous drop in funding for any kind of social/cultural/behavioral science. Recently validated by President Obama’s endorsement + commitment of further federal funding for brain research, similar to Bill Clinton’s endorsement of the Human Genome Project.
- Significant in a transnational context because85% of all research – globally – on substance use + addiction is funded by U.S. – based institution, National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). And, because of that it shapes how research globally around addiction. This is really about empire and the power to set research agendas
- http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/02/brains-of-addicts-are-inherently-abnormal-study/
- The disembodied – and de-contextualized - brain scans that are the color-coded iconography of brain science at NIDA.
- Partnership between NIDA, RWJF, + HBO to produce programming that pushes the message about drugs as a “brain disease” – while ignoring the social, cultural, + economic factors. A majority of those featured are white. in 2007, NIDA, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the cable network HBO produced a multi-part series on addiction, involving some of the most prominent addiction researchers in the world. Supported by brain scans and interviews from neuroscientists, the message that addiction is a brain disease came through loud and clear. NIDA has also produced a series of curricula for K-12 students which explains addiction in modules called things like: “Brain Power,” “Mind Over Matters,” “Heads Up,” and “The Brain” (Netherland, 2011). NIDA’s educational materials closely track the scientific literature, which has centered primarily on the biochemical changes drugs cause in the dopamine receptor and limbic systems; the relationship between drug use and prefrontal cortex of the brain; and the role of the brain’s plasticity in both the causes and effects of drug use (Koob and Simon, 2009). Screen shot from: http://www.hbo.com/addiction/understanding_addiction/
- Whiteness maps on to health…. And, health has become the new morality. Extending Metzl and Kirkland, as well as our understanding of postcolonial, transnational whiteness, I’d argue that morality and whiteness map onto each other in health.
- CONCLUSION: INTERROGATING WHITENESS & HEALTH Many of the racial justice struggles over health, illness, science and indeed bodies, has been about the effort to de-center whiteness and to undo the damage that placing whiteness (and white people) at the center – of both analysis and practice – has done to the bodies and souls of indigenous, Black and Latino peoples (Epstein, 2007; Nelson, 2011). It would therefore be a mistake to take this call for yet more research on whiteness as a invitation to re-center whiteness. It is not. Gail B. Griffin has suggested that the work of scholars studying whiteness includes “the relent- less destruction of innocence” about privilege and its workings in “oppressive discourses and institutions”—a destruction that meets “quite natural resistance to this ultimate loss of innocence” (Griffin, 2000). Exploring whiteness as a constructed racial category, and the transnational articulations of whiteness with its links to colonialism, can perhaps further the work of disrupting the “innocence” of racial hierarchies (Boucher, Carey & Ellinghaus, 2009). Moreover, the work of interrogating whiteness should be joined with the equal task of examining what we mean by “health.” Metzl and Kirkland make a convincing case that discourses of “health” have become a new kind of coercive morality within the present neoliberal moment (2010). Taken together, the interrogation of whiteness and health within a transnational, postcolonial framework challenge the conventional scholarship that perpetuates a number of theoretical and epistemological dead-ends in several fields without festishizing whiteness nor mistaking neoliberal self-governance for health.