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Toward an Anthropology of Immunology: The Body as Nation State
Author(s) -
Martin Emily
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
medical anthropology quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.855
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1548-1387
pISSN - 0745-5194
DOI - 10.1525/maq.1990.4.4.02a00030
Subject(s) - ideology , state (computer science) , race (biology) , sociology , gender studies , political science , politics , computer science , law , algorithm
In this article I describe the main imagery currently used in popular and scientific descriptions of the immune system in the United States: the body as nation state at war over its external borders, containing internal surveillance systems to monitor foreign intruders. Although in some respects this is a boundary‐oriented, internally flat system, in other respects it contains suppressed hierarchies that draw on cultural concepts of race and gender. I suggest what kinds of ideological work such imagery may be doing and what uses people make of it. Other models of the body and immune responses that build on different imagery are described.