Family, kinship, memory and temporality in the age of the new genetics

Kaja Finkler

Social Science & Medicine, 2005, vol. 61, issue 5, 1059-1071

Abstract: The new genetics has now become an integral part of contemporary biomedicine, promising great advances in alleviating disease. Like any scientific endeavor, beliefs in the new genetics tend to give new meanings to people's lives and therefore have significant implications for people's lived experience. Drawing on fieldwork in the USA and research in various literatures, the aim of this article is to explore the role the new genetics plays in mainstream American society as revealed in people's narratives of their families' medical histories. An anthropological analysis of these narratives illuminates multilayered cultural meanings of genetic inheritance and the role biomedical conceptualizations play not only in explaining disease etiologies and treatment, but also in addressing concerns that bear on the postmodern experience of family, kinship, choice, memory, time-space, relatedness, sociality and immortality.

Keywords: New; genetics; Temporality; Anthropology; of; medicine; Family; and; kinship; Narratives; USA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00037-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:5:p:1059-1071

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().