“Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine
Health is increasingly understood as a metric of an individual’s dedication to practices of personal risk management. A cultural logic of atomistic individualism informs both the privatization of medicine in Canada and public health campaigns that address environmental determinants of health. This a...
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2014
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 |
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crunivtoronpr:10.3138/topia.30-31.123 2023-12-31T10:06:57+01:00 “Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine Blacker, Sarah 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 en eng University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies volume 30-31, page 123-146 ISSN 1206-0143 1916-0194 Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering journal-article 2014 crunivtoronpr https://doi.org/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 2023-12-01T08:17:49Z Health is increasingly understood as a metric of an individual’s dedication to practices of personal risk management. A cultural logic of atomistic individualism informs both the privatization of medicine in Canada and public health campaigns that address environmental determinants of health. This article contrasts the production of subjectivity in a private health clinic in Toronto to a contemporary public health campaign designed for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children. The study shows how financialization continues to operate through colonial structures today. In this comparison, the two prescribed responses to the presence of risk diverge significantly: the wealthy are interpellated as “health investors” and urged to take preventive measures against future disease, while marginalized and racialized communities are asked to take on the role of self-management to make incremental and necessarily short-term improvements to living conditions that are actually determined by the multifarious effects of colonialism. The logic informing both the personalized health industry and the personal finance industry work to obscure these determinisms, presenting a paradigm in which both genetic predisposition to disease and social class can be transcended through savvy investment, long-term planning, and pre-emptive risk management. These industries offer a vision of transformation based on the liberal fantasy of infinite mobility, claiming to provide the means through which individuals can change their social class and prevent future illness. Article in Journal/Newspaper First Nations inuit University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 30-31 123 146 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crunivtoronpr |
language |
English |
topic |
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering |
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Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Blacker, Sarah “Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine |
topic_facet |
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering |
description |
Health is increasingly understood as a metric of an individual’s dedication to practices of personal risk management. A cultural logic of atomistic individualism informs both the privatization of medicine in Canada and public health campaigns that address environmental determinants of health. This article contrasts the production of subjectivity in a private health clinic in Toronto to a contemporary public health campaign designed for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children. The study shows how financialization continues to operate through colonial structures today. In this comparison, the two prescribed responses to the presence of risk diverge significantly: the wealthy are interpellated as “health investors” and urged to take preventive measures against future disease, while marginalized and racialized communities are asked to take on the role of self-management to make incremental and necessarily short-term improvements to living conditions that are actually determined by the multifarious effects of colonialism. The logic informing both the personalized health industry and the personal finance industry work to obscure these determinisms, presenting a paradigm in which both genetic predisposition to disease and social class can be transcended through savvy investment, long-term planning, and pre-emptive risk management. These industries offer a vision of transformation based on the liberal fantasy of infinite mobility, claiming to provide the means through which individuals can change their social class and prevent future illness. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Blacker, Sarah |
author_facet |
Blacker, Sarah |
author_sort |
Blacker, Sarah |
title |
“Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine |
title_short |
“Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine |
title_full |
“Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine |
title_fullStr |
“Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine |
title_full_unstemmed |
“Your DNA Doesn’t Need to Be Your Destiny”: Colonialism, Public Health and the Financialization of Medicine |
title_sort |
“your dna doesn’t need to be your destiny”: colonialism, public health and the financialization of medicine |
publisher |
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 |
genre |
First Nations inuit |
genre_facet |
First Nations inuit |
op_source |
TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies volume 30-31, page 123-146 ISSN 1206-0143 1916-0194 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3138/topia.30-31.123 |
container_title |
TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies |
container_volume |
30-31 |
container_start_page |
123 |
op_container_end_page |
146 |
_version_ |
1786839154849480704 |