Lead as pharmakon: IQ, violence, and the racialization of a toxic element.
By tracking lead toxicology and politics from the United States to Peru, this article shows how contemporary discourses of human lead exposure have become complexly racialized. Despite its nearly global ban from gasoline and paint, lead poisoning remains a systemic health problem in marginalized com...
| Publicado en: | Medical Anthropology Quarterly Vol. 39; no. 4; pp. 1 - 16 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Dec2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=190305077&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 190305077 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 07455194 GFS jtl: Medical Anthropology Quarterly issn: 07455194 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Dec2025 vid: 39 iid: 4 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 190305077 10.1111/maq.70009 ppf: 1 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 295KB tig: atl: Lead as pharmakon: IQ, violence, and the racialization of a toxic element. aug: au: Graeter, Stefanie Toney affil: Center for Latin American Studies, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona, , USA su: United States Peru Racialization Cognitive ability Health equity Poor communities Discrimination (Sociology) Violence Lead Toxicology sug: subj: Racialization Cognitive ability Health equity Poor communities Discrimination (Sociology) Violence United States Peru Metal service centres Ground or Treated Mineral and Earth Manufacturing All other non-metallic mineral product manufacturing Lead Toxicology ab: By tracking lead toxicology and politics from the United States to Peru, this article shows how contemporary discourses of human lead exposure have become complexly racialized. Despite its nearly global ban from gasoline and paint, lead poisoning remains a systemic health problem in marginalized communities throughout the world. Viewed as a "social pharmakon," lead's ongoing "cures" outweigh current social valuations of its systemic physiological harm in racially devalued communities. While scientific research linking lead to decreased IQ and increased violent behavior has attempted to animate broader public interest in the inequitable spread of lead exposure, it does so by reanimating racist tropes of biogeographic inferiority. Rather than dehumanizing lead‐exposed individuals and communities, narratives of lead intoxication must integrate its immediate social and material harms in specific locales and as a symptom of systemic racial injustice at a global scale. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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