On racial constitutions and digestive therapeutics

Hobart, Hi'ilei Julia; Maroney, Stephanie

doi:10.1080/15528014.2019.1638120

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This is especially important as large “Polynesian” bodies have been racialized as ignorant, primitive, and lazy and islands like Samoa are quickly glossed in media, scholarly publication, and policy as some of the “fattest nations” on earth (cf. Henderson, 2011; Hobart and Maroney, 2019). Critically examining dance also speaks to the enduring sexualization and commodification of “Polynesian” women and the central role that these essentialized ideas play in the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous people in Oceania (see Imada, 2012; Trask, 1999).…”

Section: Theorizing With Oceanic Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Hardin

2023

American Anthropologist

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This article employs Oceanic epistemological theories to explore the body as a site of knowledge production among Samoan Pentecostal women as they dance in a church‐sponsored Zumba session, tracking foods, words, and feelings: I call these moving materialities. In their work together, these women contextualized health, sickness, and weight as generated from the circulation of these kinds of moving materialities. Their work theorizing health through material change is quite different from those imagined and circulated in the literatures on diabetes and obesity. The article orients critical studies of health toward an interrogation of the dynamic qualities of materiality, including both the moving body and materials that move between or within bodies. By expanding what might be considered material and movement in the context of health, this article offers an alternative to theories of metabolism that have come to dominate how we understand the body in terms energy expenditure. Ultimately, this approach calls for anthropologists to consider the circumstances in which theory is understood to be “culturally specific” or “generalizable.”

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Section: Theorizing With Oceanic Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Hardin

2023

American Anthropologist

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“…In this view, chronic 'western diseases,' like obesity, are understood to be caused by a misbalanced (so-called dysbiotic) 'urbanized' microbiome, which can be induced, for example, through high-fat diets and overuse of antibiotics. In order to overcome these diseases, we should, so the argument goes, 'rewild' our gut microbiome by reintroducing missing microbes dominant in traditional populations (Blaser, 2014; see also Lorimer, 2017;Hobart and Maroney, 2019). 3 These studies usually operate with highly idealized assumptions about the purity, isolation, and uncontactedness of indigenous groups (see Maroney, 2017;Benezra, 2020), which are instrumentalized for the purpose of saving the 'western gut'.…”

Section: Humans and Their Microbiomementioning

confidence: 99%

“…So far this use of racial classifications in microbial research has raised surprisingly little concern (but see Hobart and Maroney, 2019;Benezra, 2020). Within the scientific community, only few review articles ask researchers to be more critical about the use of racial categories as proxies for true causes of diversity in the microbiome (Fortenberry, 2013;Findley et al, 2016).…”

Section: Humans and Their Microbiomementioning

confidence: 99%

Does the human microbiome tell us something about race?

Delgado

Baedke

2021

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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This paper critically discusses the increasing trend in human microbiome research to draw on the concept of race. This refers to the attempt to investigate the microbial profile of certain social and ethnic groups as embodied racial traits. Here, race is treated as a necessary category that helps in identifying and solving health challenges, like obesity and type-2 diabetes, in ‘western’ or indigenous populations with particular microbial characteristics. We are skeptical of this new environmentalist trend to racialize human bodies due to two reasons: (i) These race studies repeat outdated historical narratives, which link especially nutrition and race in ways that are prone to stir stereotypical and exclusionary views on indigenous groups. (ii) The concept of biological race used here is taxonomically problematic and conceptually inconsistent. It leads to a view in which human races are constituted by other non-human species. In addition, this approach cannot group biological individuals into human races and decouples races from ancestry. To support this critique, we draw on case studies of microbiome research on indigenous groups in Latin America.

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“…Genomic biotechnology promises new ways of survival in the ruins of capitalism . This encompasses the severe threat posed by the commodification of the microbes that participate in multispecies fermentation collectives (Raffaetà 2021), as I will show in regard to some of the microbial bioprospecting underway among hunter-gatherer groups like the Hadza (Hobart and Maroney 2019). In conclusion, I will argue for a cultivation of the microbial commons (De Angelis 2017;Federici 2018) in both dimensions of the term: In order to contribute toward the future of these collectives, both the microbial strains and the human skills to work with them have to be widely and freely available-the cultures as well as the cultures of cultures.…”

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confidence: 99%

Preserving the Microbial Commons

Rest¹

2021

Current Anthropology

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This article outlines an interdisciplinary research project emerging from biomolecular archaeology interested in the prehistoric spread of dairying in Mongolia, Europe, and the Near East. By comparing the microbes present in ancient and contemporary dairy products, the Heirloom Microbes project is in conversation with two of the most exciting fields of science to the general public: ancient DNA (aDNA)-which promises a new science of history through genomics-and microbiome research-which promises new treatments to some of the most mysterious ailments of industrialized populations. In this encounter the politics of life itself meets the politics of history itself, as I will show through a detailed ethnography of contemporary peasant dairying practices in Switzerland and a discussion of the microbial bioprospecting underway among hunter-gatherer groups like the Hadza of East Africa. Contrary to imaginations of revolutionary ruptures and "missing microbes" prevalent in ancient DNA and microbiome research, I argue for the continuous reproduction of human-microbe relations in millions of multispecies peasant fermentation collectives in most of the world. These microbial commons have to be protected from attempts of patenting and commodification through the collective efforts of scientists and small-scale producers.

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On racial constitutions and digestive therapeutics

Cited by 14 publications

References 31 publications

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Does the human microbiome tell us something about race?

Preserving the Microbial Commons

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