(De)Racializing Refugee Medicine

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5337977
AutoresMichelle Munyikwa (0000-0003-0794-1754, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen45
Número5
Páginas829-847
Fecha de publicación2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243920905014
OpenAlexW3004465275
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas21

Based on ethnographic research within refugee-serving institutions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), this paper examines the relationship between physicians and the knowledge they produce and consume about caring for refugees from around the world. I explore the "seething presence" of race in refugee medicine, a domain of medical practice whose entanglement with racial ideology and practice has been underexamined. I consider how knowledge about refugees from different groups-whether racially laden designations like "Asian" or "African" or national markers like Congolese or Burmese-circulates in clinical spaces as health-care teams diagnose and treat refugees using standards of "evidence-based" medicine. Assessing the primary literatures that refugee health-care providers use to justify varying care plans, I argue that race, while often unmentioned, structures the practice of refugee medicine. Additionally, the implicit use of race as an analytic, not racism or economic injustice, often disguises the impact of structural racism and inequality in refugee health disparities. I end with some reflections on how we might conduct a more just practice of refugee health care-and by extension, health care more generally-by shifting our gaze from the particularities of seemingly obvious cultural difference to social structure

Criminology · Health care · Ideology · Injustice · Political science · Politics · Racism · Refugee · Sociology · Cultural Competency in Health Care · Gender Studies · Law · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research