Rethinking Diabetes

Rethinking Diabetes investigates how "global" and "local" factors transform how diabetes is perceived, experienced, and embodied from place to place. The book argues that neoliberal capitalism fuels the intrinsic links between hunger and crisis, structural violence and fear, and cumulative trauma and psychiatric distress that are embodied in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (hereafter, "diabetes"). It suggests that a global story of modernization as the primary force in the spread of global diabetes overlooks the micro-level stressors that respond to structural inequalities and drive the underlying psychophysiological processes linking hunger, crisis, oppression, unbridled stress, and chronic psychological distress to diabetes. The narratives in this book unveil how deeply embedded such factors are in how diabetes is experienced and (re)produced among low-income communities around the world. Yet, the book focuses on four life stories – one from each context – to consider how diabetes is perceived and experienced in the United States, India, South Africa, and Kenya. These discrete chapters investigate how social, cultural, and epidemiological factors shape people's experiences and why we need to take these differences seriously when we think about what drives diabetes and how it affects the lives of the poor.