Abstract
This paper addresses the issue of how the scientific discourse of genetics is expressed in local idioms. The examples used are taken from fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka and relate principally to Sinhala Buddhist attempts to socialise `big science.' The paper explores idioms of both nature and nurture in local imagery and narratives and draws attention to the rhetorical dimensions of genetic discourses when used in context. The article concludes with a preliminary attempt to identify the ways in which explanations of genetic causality are aligned with notions of karma in the explanation of illness and misfortune.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
A very important project in this regard is the European Commission funded Public Understanding of Genetics initiative which uses a variety of anthropological approaches to explore the way genetics is being incorporated into aspects of family, race, gender, sexuality and nationality in seven European countries. See http://les1.man.ac.uk/sa/pug/about.htm.
The Island has a population of approximately 19 million the majority of whom are Sinhalese and Buddhist and there are significant Catholic, Hindu and Moslem minorities who are mostly of Tamil origin. As an economically developing country, Sri Lanka has experienced the pains of transition from a long period of colonisation (Portuguese, Dutch and British) to independence in 1948 and more recently the trauma of civil strife in both the north and south of the Island.
The research was funded as part of a Wellcome Trust Fellowship under the Medicine in Society Programme (Biomedical Ethics GR067110AIA) enabling me to carry out four and a half months of fieldwork in Sri Lanka during 2002–03. A one month pilot field trip in summer 2000 was funded by the Nuffield Foundation (Social Sciences Small Grants Scheme).
There is a strong tradition of scientific rationalism within Buddhism in Sri Lanka. This movement is rooted in 19th century reform movements and notably around Anagarika Dharmapala [13]. The alignment of science and religion is evident in the tendency to collapse modernity, science and Buddhism. As for example in the following: ‘the whole procedure that Buddhists employ, are in conformity with and in the spirit of science. Hence no quarrel could ever arise with people who accept scientific principles or make scientific discoveries. The Buddha and Buddhists welcome each scientific discovery, each new application of scientific principles, for these could never be contrary to the principles that they themselves employ [19, p. 4].
Among Buddhists in Sri Lanka, the Jātaka are popular, much loved and ubiquitous; they are found in school classrooms and children’s comics; they are discussed in late night chat-shows on TV in relation to moral crises of the day. The eminent Sri Lankan psychiatrist, D.V.J. Harischandra has written of the insights that they offer into ‘modern’ psychological problems: sexual abuse, depression and incest, to name but a few [14]. In my own work, one of the Jātaka features prominently in an analysis of contemporary organ donation practices in Sri Lanka [26].
The problem of theodicy was put into general circulation by Leibniz in the seventh century and later analysed by Weber in his account of religion and the problem of suffering [see discussion in 23].
For an article expressing concerns about ‘mushrooming medical tests’ in Sri Lanka see the article by Ajith C. Perera see www.srilankahr.net
References
Arnason A, Simpson B (2003) Refractions through culture: The new genomics in contemporary iceland. Ethnos 68(4):533–43
Appadurai A (1996) Modernity at large: Cultural dimension of globalisation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Bourdieu P (1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Carrithers MB (2005a) Anthropology as a science of moral possibilities. Cur Anthropol 46(3):433–456
Carrithers MB (2005b) Why anthropologists should study rhetoric. J Royal Anthropol Inst 11(3):577–583
Cowell EB (1895) [1990] The Jataka. Vols. I-IV. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, New Delhi
Durant J, Hansen A, Bauer M (1996) Public understanding of the new genetics. In: Marteau T, Richards M (eds.) The troubled helix: social and psychological implications of the new human genetics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (pp 235–248)
Finkler K (2005) The healing genes. In: Barnes LL, Sered SS (eds.) Religion and healing in america, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Fujimura J (2000) Transnational genomics: Transgressing the boundary between the ‘modern/ west’ and the ‘pre-modern/ east.’ In: Reid R, Traweek S (eds.) Doing Science+Culture, Routledge, London, (pp 71–95)
Fujimura J (2003) Future imaginaries: Genome scientists as socio-cultural entre-preneurs. In: Goodman AH, Heath D, Lindee SM (eds.) Genetic nature/ culture: Anthropology and Science beyond the two culture divide. University of California Press, Berkeley, (pp 176–200)
Geertz C (1973) Religion as a cultural system. In: Geertz The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York, (pp 87–125)
Giddens A (1991) Modernity and self identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Polity Press, Cambridge
Gombrich RF, Obeyesekere G (1998) Buddhism transformed: Religious change in Sri Lanka. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Harischandra DVJ (1998) Psychiatric aspects of jataka stories. Upuli Offset Printers, Colombo
Hess D (1997) Science studies. New York University Press, New York
Irwin A (2001) Constructing the scientific citizen: Science and democracy in the bioSciences. Public Understanding Sci 10:1–18
Kay LE (2000) Who wrote the book of life: A history of the genetic code. Stanford University Press, Stanford
Kevles D, Hood L (1992) The code of codes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass
Kirtisinghe BP (1984) Buddhism and science. Motilal Banarsidas Publishers, Delhi
Konrad M (2003) Pre-dictive genetic testing and the making of the pre-symptomatic person: Prognostic moralities among Huntington’s-affected families. Anthropol Med 10:23–49
Latour B (1987) Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Novas C, Rose N (2000) Genetic risk and the birth of the somatic individual. Economy Soc 29(4):485–513
Obeyesekere G (1968) Theodicy, sin and salvation in a sociology of buddhism. In: Leach ER (ed.) Dialectic in practical religion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (pp. 7–40)
Schweder R (1998) Welcome to middle age and other cultural fictions. Cambridge University Pres, Chicago
Simpson B (2004a) Acting ethically, responding culturally: Framing the new reproductive and genetic technologies in Sri Lanka. Asia Pacific J Anthropol 5(3):227–243
Simpson B (2004b) Impossible gifts: Bodies, buddhism and bioethics. J Royal Anthropol Insit 10(4):839–859
Singer P., Daar AS (2001) Harnessing genomics and biotechnology to improve global health equity. Science 294(5540):87–89
Strathern M (1997) The work of culture: An anthropological perspective. In: Clarke A, Parsons E (eds.) Culture, kinship and genes: Towards a cross-cultural genetics. MacMillan Press Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, (pp. 40–53)
Turney J (1998) Signs of life – taking genetic literacy seriously. In: Glasner P, Rothman H (eds.) Genetic imaginations: Ethical, legal and social issues in human genome research. Ashgate, Aldershot, (pp. 131–140)
Van Dijk J (1998) Imagenation. MacMillan Press Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke
WHO (2002) Genomics and world health. World Health Organisation, Geneva
Wynne B (1995) The public understanding of science. In: Jasanoff S, Markel G, Peterson J, Pinch T (eds.) Handbook of science and technology studies. Sage, London