In the past couple of weeks we have been discussing not only members of our society which fall outside of our socio-pysiological norm but also how the emergence of "Medicine" has shaped our perception of those individuals. What strikes me as interesting is not only how we have historically (in Medicine) observed and experimented on these individuals, but also how we dissect and preserve these individuals after they pass. I cannot help but wonder why it is that we do this?
In keeping with the theme of this class, that of "body," I can't help but think that cutting up and medically tracing a map of a person's body after their death is an act of invasion and domination which serves only to reinforce their separation from society. Even in death, the cases we have studied in class do not receive a rightful place of rest. Instead their organs are harvested and seperated, at often time being capsulized as some form of scientific/academic prop. It seems, that medicine looked to methodically cut apart these people and diagnose all the ways that these individuals seemed to be inhuman, or better yet worse than human, sub-human.
I thought about what we said about Baartman, how despite her not having any real deformity in physiology from the average human being, medicine/scientific analysis looked to exaggerate and perpetuate not only a racist, sexist, and imperialist agenda but also looked to commodity this woman for the sake of capital gain. I thought it spoke a lot about how authority has historically not only been informed but it has also been endorsed by medicine in order to perpetuate exploitative practices-hegemonic oppression.
-Jayson Castillo-
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