Arranging marriage; negotiating risk: genetics and society in Qatar

Kilshaw, Susie; Raisi, Tasneem Al; Alshaban, Fouad

doi:10.1080/13648470.2014.976542

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The positive attitudes toward genetic testing are consistent with survey findings reported from the Netherlands [ 11 , 12 ], United States [ 13 , 14 ], and Canada [ 15 ], where genetic testing is more common. The positive attitudes and willingness to participate are of particular interest, given the concerns that a highly endogamous population would be opposed to genetic testing on cultural grounds and fear of stigmatization if associated with a genetic disease [ 16 , 17 ]. Nevertheless, there is need for in-depth qualitative research looking at the public’s beliefs and perspectives on genomic testing that may yield questions and concerns not easily identified in a survey.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Willingness to participate in genome testing: a survey of public attitudes from Qatar

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Genomics has the potential to revolutionize medical approaches to disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, but it does not come without challenges. The success of a national population-based genome program, like the Qatar Genome Program (QGP), depends on the willingness of citizens to donate samples and take up genomic testing services. This study explores public attitudes of the Qatari population toward genetic testing and toward participating in the QGP. A representative sample of 837 adult Qataris was surveyed in May 2016. Approximately 71% of respondents surveyed reported that they were willing to participate in the activities of the QGP. Willingness to participate was significantly associated with basic literacy in genetics, a family history of genetic diseases, and previous experience with genetic testing through premarital screening. Respondents cited the desire to know more about their health status as the principle motivation for participating, while lack of time and information were reported as the most important barriers. With QGP plans to ramp up the scale of its national operation toward more integration into clinical care settings, it is critical to understand public attitudes and their determinants. The results demonstrate public support but also identify the need for more education and individual counseling that not only provide information on the process, challenges, and benefits of genomic testing, but that also address concerns about information security.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Willingness to participate in genome testing: a survey of public attitudes from Qatar

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In terms of how genetics and fate are interwoven in Southeast Arabia in general, other research has provided insight in contexts outside chronic illness. Kilshaw (2015) The language of fate is a language in which genetics is often fully embedded. As discussed, while the epistemology of 'genetic determinism' has been a trope borrowed in both social and biological landscapes in the West, fate is far more culturally owned in the Gulf, and in much wider social ways than in, say, the UK.…”

Section: or Popenoe 2003 For Example) One Of The Issues That mentioning

confidence: 99%

City and cosmology: genetics, health, and urban living in Dubai

Parkhurst

2018

Anthropology & Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In light of increasingly high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity among citizens of the Arabian Gulf, popular health discourse in the region has emphasised the emergent Arab genome as the primary etiological basis of major health conditions. However, after many years of public dissemination of genomic knowledge in the region, and widespread acceptance of this knowledge among Gulf Arab citizens, the rates of chronic illness continue to increase. This paper briefly explores the clash between indigenous Islamic knowledge systems and biomedical knowledge systems imported into the United Arab Emirates. It presents vignettes collected from interviews and participant observation in Dubai as part of nearly four years of ethnographic research, completed as part of the author's doctoral work on 'Anxiety and Identity in Southeast Arabia'. Rather than radically informing health seeking behaviours among many UAE citizens, the emphasis on the 'Arab Genome' has instead reconfirmed the authority of Bedouin cosmological understandings of disease, reshaping the language that people use to engage with their bodies and their health. Local cosmology remains a powerful discursive element that often operates in contention, in sometimes powerfully subtle ways, with novel health initiative regimes. For many people in the region, genomic information, as it is often discussed and propagated in the UAE, shares an intimate relationship with ideas of fate and national identity, and sometimes serves to mitigate the increasingly uncertain terms of engagement that people share between the body, their health, and rapidly changing urban landscapes.

show abstract

“…We have argued that whilst aware of the discourse of risk and close marriage, Qataris negotiated with other forms of risk, such as the potential dangers of marrying a daughter to "strangers" (Kilshaw et al 2015). Thus, marriage in the family mean the woman would be more comfortable, have closer ties to her nascent family and would share cultural traditions in order to effectively impart to children.…”

Section: Traditional Modernistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In interviews, respondents often saw the benefits of close marriage as outweighing potential risks (Kilshaw et al 2015). Although familiar with the discourse of genetics, participants were ambivalent about genetic risk and pointed to other possible causes.…”

Section: Traditional Modernistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qatari intersections with global genetics research and discourse

Kilshaw

2017

Anthropology & Medicine

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Genetic discourses have taken a predominant role in approaches to combating a number of conditions that affect Qataris. This paper is derived from an exploration of Qatari encounters with globalizing discourses of genetics, particularly as they relate to notions of risk. It explores Qataris negotiations of global interactions and influences, including the discourses around genetic risk and cousin marriage. It suggests that family marriage can be seen as one of the main platforms of resistance and a means for modern, cosmopolitan and tradition to be negotiated.

show abstract

Arranging marriage; negotiating risk: genetics and society in Qatar

Cited by 15 publications

References 31 publications

Willingness to participate in genome testing: a survey of public attitudes from Qatar

Willingness to participate in genome testing: a survey of public attitudes from Qatar

City and cosmology: genetics, health, and urban living in Dubai

Qatari intersections with global genetics research and discourse

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About