"This paper examines various conceptions of “race”, from biological reductionism, through notions of ethnicity, racialized groups, sociological conceptions of “race”, political and analytical uses of the term “Black” and so-called “new ethnicities” such as situational and plastic ethnicity in order to examine the consequences of these competing conceptions of race for a social analysis of sickle cell anaemia and beta-thalassaemia. The paper concludes that any group of people associated with the haemoglobin disorders are subject both to constraints upon their actions and opportunities for re-interpreting their social world. "

Support: Digital