Reconsidering Race: Social Science Perspectives on Racial Categories in the Age of Genomics

329 Pages·2018·2.528 MB·English

by  Kazuko Suzuki , Diego A. von Vacano (eds.)

Reconsidering Race

Reconsidering Race
SOCIAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVES ON RACIAL
CATEGORIES IN THE AGE OF GENOMICS
EDITED BY KAZUKO SUZUKI
and
DIEGO A. VON VACANO
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Suzuki, Kazuko, editor. | Von Vacano, Diego A., 1970– editor.
Title: Reconsidering race : social science perspectives on racial categories in the age of genomics /
edited by Kazuko Suzuki and Diego von Vacano.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017046087 (print) | LCCN 2017059372 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190465292 (Electronic Text) | ISBN 9780190465308 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190465315 (Epub)
ISBN 9780190465285 (hardcover : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Race—Social aspects. | Human genetics—Social aspects. | Genomics—Social aspects.
Classification: LCC GN269 (ebook) | LCC GN269 .R43 2018 (print) | DDC 305.8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046087
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Preface: Race Is Socially Constructed but Mutations Are Real  ix
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.
Acknowledgments  xvii
A Critical Analysis of Racial Categories in
the Age of Genomics: An Introduction  1
KAZUKO SUZUKI AND DIEGO A. VON VACANO
Part One THE NEW CHALLENGES TO THE SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION APPROACH TO RACE
1. Biological Theories of Race beyond the Millennium  21
JOSEPH L. GRAVES JR.
2. Americans’ Attitudes on Individual or Racially Inflected
Genetic Inheritance  32
JENNIFER HOCHSCHILD AND MAYA SEN
3. The Constructivist Concept of Race  50
ANN MORNING
4. The Return of Biology  62
ROGERS BRUBAKER
vi contents
Part Two RACE, GENOMICS, AND HEALTH
5. A Sociogenomic World  103
CATHERINE BLISS
6. Nature versus Nurture in the Explanations for Racial/ Ethnic
Health Disparities: Parsing Disparities in the Era
of Genome- Wide Association Studies  120
JAY S. KAUFMAN, DINELA RUSHANI,
AND RICHARD S. COOPER
7. Genetic Ancestry Tests and Race: Who Takes Them, Why,
and How Do They Affect Racial Identities?  133
WENDY D. ROTH AND KATHERINE A. LYON
Part Three GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON RACE
AND GENOMICS DEBATES
8. Recasting Race: Science, Politics, and Group- Making in
the Postcolony  173
RUHA BENJAMIN
9. Evidence of What? Re-c reating Race through Evidence- Based
Approaches to Global Health  190
CAROLYN ROUSE
10. How Did East Asians Become Yellow?  204
MICHAEL KEEVAK
11. Reconsiderations of Race: Commissioning Parents
and Transnational Surrogacy in India  209
SHARMILA RUDRAPPA
12. Academic Regionalism and the Study of Human Genetic
Variation in a Transnational Context: Asianism and the
Racialization of Ethnicity  223
SHIRLEY SUN
contents vii
Conclusion— Thinking about Race in the Age
of Genomics: Assessments and Prospects  238
KAZUKO SUZUKI AND DIEGO A. VON VACANO
Bibliography  255
About the Contributors  287
Index  289

Preface
Race Is Socially Constructed but Mutations Are Real
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.
When we thus come to inquire into the essential difference of races we
find it hard to come at once to any definite conclusion. Many criteria of
race differences have in the past been proposed, as color, hair, cranial mea-
surements and language. And manifestly, in each of these respects, human
beings differ widely. They vary in color, for instance, from the marble-l ike
pallor of the Scandinavian to the rich, dark brown of the Zulu, passing
by the creamy Slav, the yellow Chinese, the light brown Sicilian and the
brown Egyptian. Men vary, too, in the texture of hair from the obstinately
straight hair of the Chinese to the obstinately tufted and frizzled hair of
the Bushman. In measurement of heads, again, men vary; from the broad-
headed Tartar to the medium-h eaded European and the narrow- headed
Hottentot; or, again in language, from the highly-i nflected Roman tongue
to the monosyllabic Chinese. All these physical characteristics are patent
enough, and if they agreed with each other it would be very easy to clas-
sify mankind. Unfortunately for scientists, however, these criteria of race
are most exasperatingly intermingled. Color does not agree with texture
of hair, for many of the dark races have straight hair; nor does color agree
with the breadth of the head, for the yellow Tartar has a broader head than
the German; nor, again, has the science of language as yet succeeded in
clearing up the relative authority of these various and contradictory cri-
teria. The final word of science, so far, is that we have at least two, perhaps
three, great families of human beings— the whites and Negroes, possibly
the yellow race. That other races have arisen from the intermingling of the
blood of these two. This broad division of the world’s races which men like
Huxley and Raetzel have introduced as more nearly true than the old five-
race scheme of Blumenbach, is nothing more than an acknowledgment
that, so far as purely physical characteristics are concerned, the differences
ix