Race and health : dilemmas of the South African health researcher
Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Sun Media
Abstract
We begin this chapter by discussing responses by members of our team to comments
on articles submitted to major international journals focusing on health research.
Recently, when one of our manuscripts was close to being accepted, the editors asked
the author team to change its use of the term “coloured” to “mixed race”. Shortly
after this, another journal asked us to change the term “coloured” to “people of
diverse origin”. Some years ago, we were asked by a journal published in the USA to
change our use of “coloured” by describing our (South African) research participants
as “African American”! Lastly, when a reviewer read a manuscript we wrote about
the Mamre Community Health Project, a project in a South African community
where most inhabitants identify as “coloured”, we were asked to expand on the
rituals and practices of what the reviewer called “the Mamre”. In this particular
case, the implication was that there was an African tribe called “the Mamre” similar
in nature, we assume, to “the Nuer”, a “tribe” described by Evans-Pritchard1 in the
middle of the twentieth century.
Description
CITATION: Volmink, J. et al. 2020. Race and health : dilemmas of the South African health researcher, in Jansen, J. & Walters, C. (eds). 2020. Fault lines : a primer on race, science and society. Stellenbosch: SUN PReSS, doi:10.18820/9781928480495/07.
The original publication is available at https://africansunmedia.store.it.si/za
The original publication is available at https://africansunmedia.store.it.si/za
Keywords
Science -- Social aspects -- South Africa, Health and race, Racism -- Health aspects
Citation
Volmink, J. et al. 2020. Race and health : dilemmas of the South African health researcher, in Jansen, J. & Walters, C. (eds). 2020. Fault lines : a primer on race, science and society. Stellenbosch: SUN PReSS, doi:10.18820/9781928480495/07.