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Foucauldian Genealogy Toward Understanding an Historical Outbreak of Amebiasis in Loon Lake

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Foucauldian Genealogy Toward Understanding an Historical Outbreak of Amebiasis in Loon Lake ‘THAT’S HOW I SAW IT ANYWAYS’: FOUCAULDIAN GENEALOGY TOWARD UNDERSTANDING AN HISTORICAL OUTBREAK OF AMEBIASIS IN LOON LAKE A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Lesley Christine Wiebe © Copyright Lesley Christine Wiebe, January 2014. All rights reserved. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis/dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis/dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis/dissertation or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis/dissertation. Head of the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada i ABSTRACT This thesis explores the utility of the conflated term “colonial medicine” by drawing on events during an historical outbreak of amebic dysentery that occurred on several Indian Reservations near Loon Lake, Saskatchewan, during the 1960s and ‘70s, including a series of government-sponsored drug trials conducted to stem the outbreak. Largely devoid of the racialized notions characterizing primary documents used by previous scholars of ‘colonial medicine’, the medical journal articles, government memorandums, and letters written by physicians in connection with the outbreak and trials reveal their immersion in ‘la clinique’, or an anatomo-clinical discourse similar to what theorist Michel Foucault described in Birth of the Clinic. Conversely, conversations with Loon Lake area community members on the subjects of the outbreak and trials reveal their multiplex and nuanced reactions to medical and colonial discourses. Arguably, then, when writing about past events, historians should weigh ‘medicine’ and colonial discourse separately. Essential methodological consideration was given to the Foucauldian concept of ‘disinterring’ popular knowledge. Drawing on Foucault’s edited works Power/Knowledge and I, Pierre Riviére, the subjugated knowledges of Aboriginal community members, physicians, sanitation workers, and government employees gleaned through interviews and text are contrasted as per his example in these works with the false functionalism of ‘scientificity’. Moreover, when considered in tandem, these subjugated knowledges illustrate a ‘structural violence’, following anthropologist Paul Farmer’s methodology for describing such phenomena in Pathologies of Power. Overarchingly, they obscure the paradigmatic dichotomies (‘doctor’/‘patient’, ‘patient’/the healthy person, ‘colonizer’/‘colonized’, ‘oppressor’/‘oppressed’) espoused in medical, colonial, and even post-colonial discourses. This understanding forces the reflexive recognition that–if we accept rhetorician Christopher Bracken’s assertion in Magical Criticism there is a recourse to savage philosophy within academia–what we say as historians has consequence beyond discourse, possibly creating new ‘subjects’ in a Foucauldian, disciplined society. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to sincerely thank the people of the Makwa Sahgaiehcan (Loon Lake) First Nation and Ministikwan Cree Nation for taking the time to speak with me, and tolerating my absolute naivety on arrival on the wake left by years of miscommunication between doctors and patients in your communities. I tried to the best of my ability to communicate the memories and opinions of the people I spoke to, and if there are faults in my recounting that lies at my feet alone. I, personally, and countless others are indebted to members of your communities’ either willing or unwilling participation in the metronidazole trials for our current health, something which I feel you have never been properly acknowledged or thanked for–this is my adequate attempt to do so. Second, I would like to thank Keith Carlson for his generosity and tireless help over the years as my supervisor, graduate professor, former employer, and friend. You were my inspiration for doing ethnohistorical work in the first place; you at varying times gave me needed encouragement, posed the thought-provoking question, provided the gentle nudge, or (proverbially, of course!) dragged me kicking and screaming through the writing process; and you put literal clothes on my back and food on my table through various research assistantships. Your own work is a model of how community-based research should be–would that I could have imitated it. Thanks to my committee members Jim Handy and Gary Zellar for your patience, guidance, and kind words. You read more drafts, and provided more constructive feedback than committee members should ideally have to (again, my fault, not Dr. Carlson’s), and my writing benefitted immensely from your diligence and care. Thank you to Kristina Bidwell for serving as my external examiner, and the thoughtful questions you posed during my examination–as I said before, it was an honor to have someone whose work I admire (and whose work I quoted) at my defense. A special thank you to Dion Fineblanket for his guidance in Loon Lake, helping me set up interviews, and encouragement and enthusiasm about my research; without you, this thesis would not have the community involvement I had hoped for, and ultimately received. Special thanks to Betty Mitsuing for serving as my first interviewee and, in turn, directing others to come and speak with me; this thesis would not been same without your aid (I will always think fondly of that early summer day when we sat down to talk). Thank you to Frank Scott for speaking with iii me on several occasions, and your guidance in and around Loon Lake; I truly appreciate your generosity in this regard. Thank you to Library and Archives Canada staff, and staff at the two (Saskatoon, Regina) Saskatchewan Archives Board Locations. This research was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship, a University of Saskatchewan Dean’s Scholarship, as well as disbursements from Dr. J. R. Miller–my sincere thanks to those who forwarded my name for consideration and/or wrote letters on my behalf. Thank you to Ana Novakovic for reading my various drafts countless times, and always providing a listening ear and/or being the ideal sounding board. Finally, thank you to my parents Murray McDonnell and Patricia McDonnell, my siblings James McDonnell and Katy McDonnell, and my husband Adam Wiebe–your encouragement and support meant everything. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Permission to Use..................................................................................................................i Abstract.................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents.................................................................................................................v List of Tables........................................................................................................................vi List of Figures......................................................................................................................vii CHAPTER ONE Orwellian ‘Doublethink’ and the Drug Trials of Loon Lake.................................................1 CHAPTER TWO ‘Shit Happens in Medicine’..................................................................................................18 CHAPTER THREE ‘That’s How I Saw It Anyways’...........................................................................................41 CHAPTER FOUR ‘But We Have to Learn To Use Them’.................................................................................62 Appendix A Map of the Areas Affected by the Dysentery Outbreak........................................................87 Appendix B Figure of the Small Bowel Wall, and Original Tables from Meerovitch and Eaton’s “Outbreak of Amebiasis” .....................................................................................................88 Appendix C Transcript of Sidney Chief’s Interview.................................................................................90 Appendix D Government Approaches to Teaching Sanitation or Hygienic Practices.............................106 Bibliography.......................................................................................................................110 v LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 IHA titers and skin test reactions in subjects from an amebiasis-endemic area....................31 Table 4.1 IHA titers and skin test reactions in subjects from an amebiasis-endemic area....................73 vi LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 2.1. Three separate images showing tissual penetration in ‘P.B.’s’
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