Blood, race and indigenous peoples in twentieth century extreme physiology

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3 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

In the first half of the twentieth century the attention of American and European researchers was drawn to the area of 'extreme physiology', partly because of expeditions to the north and south poles, and to high altitude, but also by global conflicts which were fought for the first time with aircraft, and involved conflict in non-temperate zones, deserts, and at the freezing Eastern front. In an attempt to help white Euro-Americans survive in extreme environments, physiologists, anthropologists, and explorers studied indigenous people's bodies, cultures, and technologies. This paper will sketch an outline of the science of white survival in three 'extreme' environments: the Antarctic and Arctic; high-altitude; and the Australian desert, with a particular focus on the ways in which indigenous populations were studied, or in some cases ignored, by Western biomedical scientists-despite their crucial and systematic contributions to the success of experiments and expeditions. Particularly focusing on altitude, and on blood in both its symbolic (hereditary) and literal sense, the article shows how assumptions about race, indigeneity, civilisation, and evolution shaped the ways White Westerners understood their own bodies as well as those of the people they encountered in cold, high and hot places on the earth. Despite new discoveries in physiology and evolutionary science, old racialised assumptions were maintained, especially those that figured the temperate body as civilised and the tropical body as primitive; and in at least one case it will be shown that these racialised assumptions significantly altered, if not retarded, the science of respiratory physiology.

Original languageEnglish
Article number26
Number of pages20
JournalHistory & Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume41
Issue number2
Early online date13 Jun 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2019

Keywords

  • Acclimatisation
  • Adaptation
  • Altitude
  • Blood
  • Physiology
  • Race science

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • History
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • History and Philosophy of Science

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