In this third annual Racial (In)Justice Lecture organized by the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology (and co-sponsored by the School of Population and Public Health), Professor Helena Hanson (UCLA) will present “Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America”. Professor Hansen will be speaking about her recently published book which looks at the racialization of opiate addiction and addiction treatment by the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry. She has also made a documentary film, Managing the Fix, about these issues. Prof. Hansen, who is an MD with a PhD in Anthropology, is currently chairing the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. For more on Prof. Hansen, see: https://socialmedicine.semel.ucla.edu/helena-hansen/
Description: This talk excavates the ways that the US “opioid crisis” of the past two decades came to be seen as white. Based on over a decade of participant observation in the field of addiction medicine that has evolved in tandem with the marketing of Oxycontin, it reviews several “technologies of whiteness” – neuroscience, new biotechnology development, regulation and marketing – that explain the racial symbolism and demographics of opioids. It ends with a glimpse of alternatives to racial capitalism as the foundation for US healthcare.”
