The Production of Local Biologies

Abstract

Biological anthropologists are being urged to pay greater attention to politics and economics in health analyses. Rather than building larger and larger models in which health is merely an output, it is more useful to focus on the way in which political and economic circumstances create local biologies which in turn become a focus for further policy development. Analysis of historical changes in developmental defects of tooth enamel in a group of Warlpiri people resident at Yuendumu, Australia, reveals increases in the frequency of these defects and a changing age distribution from 1890 to 1950. This reflects the changing economic situation and government policies affecting Aboriginal people. Government officials had a particular construction of “traditional” Aboriginal lifestyles that contributed to their policy of establishing settlements. The settlements then served to create a uniform pattern of childhood growth and development which was one stimulant to further changes in policy. In this instance a p...