Race, Racism and Anthropology: Decolonising Health Inequality in a Time of Covid-19

Abstract

In the United Kingdom, the government’s failure to consistently record the race and ethnicity of those who have died from COVID-19 and the disproportionate mortality impact of the virus on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities speaks to a systemic failure to account for the interplay between the social construction of race and the lived experience of racism, itself presented biologically as ‘poor health’. This failure has run for far longer and far deeper than many would care to admit. In this article, I use my own positionality as a ‘Mixed-Race Black’ woman to argue that the unique place of medical anthropology to sit at the intersection of the social, political, biological, and ecological means it can provide alternative approaches to understanding the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic and lay some foundations for repair strategies that encompass the patterns, processes, and constructs of health inequality.

Epistemic and institutional recognition work in changing conditions of social visibility: Anosmia's journey from the shadows to the spotlight

“…This was the case for example for the recognition struggle involved in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, tragically made hypervisible through the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 ( Mullard, 2023 ). That visibility in turn triggered recognition work to raise attention to the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 on already marginalized communities ( Mullard, 2021 ; Mullard et al, 2023 ). At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic also brought on new misrecognitions for that very community ( Aspinall, 2021 ).…”

Authenticity and recognition: Theorising antiracist becomings and allyship in the time of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter

“…Both, through thought-provoking prose on her blog and her conversations with me, Naaz highlights an engagement with affective authenticity through her struggles with racial identity. She foregrounds that deeply perplexing state of racial indeterminacy common among those who combine different phenotypic characteristics of their parents (Gilroy, 1993; Lionet, 1989; Mullard, 2021). She talks intimately and with passion about her struggles with racial identity and in her blog about the volatility of her relationship with her parents.…”

Developing a peer-led intervention to promote COVID-19 testing in low-income housing settings

“…These include biomedical, relational, and socio-political framings. Biomedical models emphasize disease progression or symptom control, typically outside of social context, which can be a major limitation, as has been highlighted by the experiences of marginalized groups with COVID-19 (10). While relational models recognize social context (11), framing peer interventions solely through a relational lens could fail to appreciate how within-group variation in social norms and a lack of community cohesion could lead to reduced benefit for individuals who might be disempowered relative to the rest of their community (9).…”