Open AccessRace, Racism and Anthropology: Decolonising Health Inequality in a Time of Covid-19
Author(s) -
Jordan Mullard
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
medicine anthropology theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2405-691X
DOI - 10.17157/mat.8.1.5112
Subject(s) - racism , race (biology) , ethnic group , pandemic , government (linguistics) , race and health , sociology , gender studies , inequality , politics , intersection (aeronautics) , health equity , covid-19 , health care , political science , geography , anthropology , medicine , law , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , cartography
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.