"Lead as Pharmakon": IQ, violence, and the racialization of a toxic element

In her latest publication in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, SoA Assistant Professor Stefanie Graeter tracks lead toxicology from the United States to Peru to show how transnational discourses of lead exposure have become complexly racialized. Her article argues that scientists, policy experts, NGOs, and the media have used the link between lead exposure, reduced IQ, and increased aggression to animate broader public interest in lead-exposed populations but do so by reanimating racist tropes of biogeographic inferiority, producing contradictory political effects. Click here for full article.