ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will consider a particular instance of ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas 1966), namely the occurrence of genes associated with particular diseases in populations where, according to popular and professional discourses, they ‘ought not to be’ (Tapper 1999). The chapter commences with a brief description of sickle cell and thalassaemia and reports on interviews undertaken with twenty-seven specialist haemoglobinopathy counsellors about their experiences of asking ethnicity screening questions in connection with sickle cell/thalassaemia risk. ‘White English’ carriers of sickle cell or betathalassaemia are reported to react badly to news of their genetic status, considering themselves ‘unclean’, ‘tainted’, or ‘contaminated’ by a condition that, for them, has strong connotations of being ‘black’. The counsellors, themselves largely of African/Caribbean descent, are obliged to absorb the racism implicit in these reactions, but develop some interesting strategies for ‘cooling out’ such White English carriers.
