The Politics of Knowledge in the Biomedical Sciences

In the wake of the decolonization movement in South Africa and around the world, this edited work presents fresh evidence and advances new arguments on the politics and economics of colonial biomedical knowledge in South Africa and other parts of the African continent. Covering a richly diverse set of fields---including human genetics, obstetrics, occupational therapy, medical photography and the vaccine sciences---the book demonstrates the troubled histories and the enduring effects of imperial knowledge decades since the end of colonial rule and apartheid. While this is a valuable text on the politics of the biomedical sciences written from the perspective of the African continent, at the same time it revisits knowledge/power relationships between the global north and south in a historical perspective and in their contemporary expression in the disciplines. The immediate benefit is a reference resource for medical science researchers, and a teaching text for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students. The book is further composed as an accessible, readable and interesting text on politics and medicine in Africa for the discerning lay reader.

Auteur

Jonathan D. Jansen is a Distinguished Professor of Education at Stellenbosch University and President of the Academy of Science of South Africa. He is a curriculum theorist, and his research is concerned with the politics of knowledge. His most recent and co-authored book is The Decolonization of Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and he holds a MSc from Cornell and a PhD from Stanford University. Jess Auerbach is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town and a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study. Jess is an anthropologist of knowledge systems, and her work spans the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. She has written two recent books, one on the emerging Angolan Middle Class and one on everyday kindness during the South African Covid-19 pandemic. She holds an MSc from Oxford and a PhD from Stanford University and is a P-rated Scholar with the National Research Foundation.