Description
Book SynopsisMargaret Pollak explores experiences, understandings, and care of diabetes in a Native urban community in Chicago made up of individuals representing more than one hundred tribes from across the United States and Canada.
Trade Review"Pollak's book is an important and valuable addition to medical historiography. It will be beneficial to a wide audience in the field of history as well as for medical professionals and clinicians. The use of oral history is important in a study like this to give voice to those who have been previously hidden from history. The book is extremely well written and has an excellent flow. It was an enjoyable read and covers a fascinating scope."—Lauren Young, H-Sci-Med-Tech
"Drawing on extensive ethnographic interviews, observations, informal conversations, surveys, and field literature, Pollak offers a rich exploration of indigenous Chicagoans' experiences, care, and cultural understandings, noting how diabetes shapes beliefs and practices among those living with the disease and care providers. The study concludes by broadly examining historical and contemporary factors that led to the ongoing epidemic, and subsequently formulated indigenous lay perceptions of illness and health, and how that knowledge may be incorporated into the health-care system to strengthen outcomes, making this book an important contribution."—G. R. Campbell,
Choice“The interdisciplinary approach to this subject makes an important contribution not only to medical anthropology and Native American studies but also to public health, medical humanities, American studies, and cultural studies. Pollak deftly and simply lays out the discursive turns of biomedical explanations about diabetes within historical context and also demonstrates the structural injustices that complicate biomedical interventions.”—Sandra L. Garner, author of
To Come to a Better Understanding: Medicine Men and Clergy Meetings on the Rosebud Reservation, 1973–1978Table of ContentsList of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Building of Chicago’s Contemporary Indigenous American Population
2. Native Chicago
3. Diabetes among Indigenous Americans
4. Diabetes in Native Chicago
5. Local Understandings and Explanations of Diabetes
6. Care in the Context of Chronicity
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Interview Participants
Appendix 2: Sample Questions
Appendix 3: Research Approval
Notes
Bibliography
Index
