Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

Health, Ethnicity and Diabetes

Racialised Constructions of 'Risky' South Asian Bodies

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Harshad Keval

    1. Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, United Kingdom

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Harshad Keval
    Pages 1-11

  3. Contextualising the ‘Risky’ South Asian Diabetic Body

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Conceptualising Race, Ethnicity, and Health

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 15-37

    3. Situating the South Asian Diabetic Risk

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 39-59

    4. Constructing the Risk: Faulty Lifestyles, Faulty Genes

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 61-86

    5. Method

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 87-98

  4. Resisting Constructions of Risk: The Counter-Narratives

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-103
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Doing Everyday Diabetes

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 105-128

    3. Using Complementary Health and Remedies

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 129-145

    4. Diabetes, Biography, and Community

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 147-166

    5. ‘Race-ing’ Back to the Bio-genetic Future?

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 167-183

    6. Conclusion

      • Harshad Keval
      Pages 185-194

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 195-201
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book explores the often contentious relationship between health, concepts of race and ethnicity, and the impact on South Asian groups. Using medical sociological and anthropological perspectives, it excavates racialised constructions of diabetes ‘risk’ within discourses, and highlights the contrasting counter narratives in people’s accounts of their everyday lives.

By identifying a number of components to the discursive, racialised construction of ‘risky’ South Asian bodies, this book problematises taken for granted understandings of culture, lifestyle and genetic risk. The mobilisation of these mechanisms in health science and interventions result in a racialising gaze, directed at groups already experiencing historically embedded race-related issues. The book situates these constructions of risk against the emergent, fluid and dynamic counter narratives to risk constructions. The new found momentum in genetic science is also critiqued in its formulation of racial-genetic risk, especially in the case of diabetes in South Asian groups, and is identified as perpetuating a series of racializing processes.

Reviews

“This is an important study of lived experience of a chronic condition, diabetes, against the background of race, ethnicity and notions of difference. It constitutes an important addition to the sociological literature on chronic illness generally and ethnicity, race and chronic illness in particular. The study is impressively contextualised within relevant sociological literatures. The book is an important resource for academic researchers, students and policy makers like.” (Professor Waqar Ahmad, Middlesex University, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, United Kingdom

    Harshad Keval

About the author

Harshad Keval is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, UK. He has held posts in Switzerland and the UK and has worked on the intersection of race, ethnicity, culture and health in a variety of countries and contexts, including mental health in South Asia, childhood illnesses in Tanzania and Leprosy in Sri Lanka. His work recently has focused on the racialised constructions of risk in South Asian populations in the UK. He has published previously on the discursive constructions of racialised risk in contemporary health arenas, ‘normalised’ race based rhetoric in contemporary political contexts, and the emergent concerns around post-race discourse and immigration.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Health, Ethnicity and Diabetes

  • Book Subtitle: Racialised Constructions of 'Risky' South Asian Bodies

  • Authors: Harshad Keval

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45703-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-45702-8Published: 24 May 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-45703-5Published: 18 May 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 201

  • Number of Illustrations: 4 b/w illustrations, 3 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Sociology of the Body, Medical Sociology, Ethnicity Studies, Public Health, Area Studies

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation