Article ID: CBB461617867

Explaining the visible and the invisible: Public knowledge of genetics, ancestry, physical appearance and race in Colombia (2015)

unapi

Using data from focus groups conducted in Colombia, we explore how educated lay audiences faced with scenarios about ancestry and genetics draw on widespread and dominant notions of nation, race and belonging in Colombia to ascribe ancestry to collectivities and to themselves as individuals. People from a life sciences background tend to deploy idioms of race and genetics more readily than people from a humanities and race-critical background. When they considered individuals, people tempered or domesticated the more mechanistic explanations about racialized physical appearance, ancestry and genetics that were apparent at the collective level. Ideas of the latency and manifestation of invisible traits were an aspect of this domestication. People ceded ultimate authority to genetic science, but deployed it to work alongside what they already knew. Notions of genetic essentialism co-exist with the strategic use of genetic ancestry in ways that both fix and unfix race. Our data indicate the importance of attending to the different epistemological stances through which people define authoritative knowledge and to the importance of distinguishing the scale of resolution at which the question of diversity is being posed.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB461617867/

Similar Citations

Article Ernesto Schwartz-Marín; Peter Wade; Arely Cruz-Santiago; Roosbelinda Cárdenas; (2015)
Colombian Forensic Genetics as a Form of Public Science: The Role of Race, Nation and Common Sense in the Stabilization of DNA Populations (/isis/citation/CBB672411022/)

Article Peter Wade; Carlos López-Beltrán; Eduardo Restrepo; Ricardo Ventura Santos; (2015)
Genomic Research, Publics and Experts in Latin America: Nation, Race and Body (/isis/citation/CBB974769113/)

Article Guido Barbujani; (2017)
What Genetics Has to Say about Racial Categorization of Humans (/isis/citation/CBB088477154/)

Article Michael Kent; Vivette García-Deister; Carlos López-Beltrán; Ricardo Ventura Santos; Ernesto Schwartz-Marín; Peter Wade; (2015)
Building the Genomic Nation: ‘Homo Brasilis’ and the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ in Comparative Cultural Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB543686037/)

Book Peter Wade; Carlos López Beltrán; Eduardo Restrepo; Ricardo Ventura Santos; (2014)
Mestizo Genomics: Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America (/isis/citation/CBB757107642/)

Essay Review Sebastián Gil-Riaño; (2017)
Redemptive Ancestries: Human Population Genetics, Sex and Antiracism (/isis/citation/CBB171980785/)

Article Possik, Patricia Abrao; Shumiski, Livia Cantisani; Correa, Elisete Marcia; Maia, Roberta de Assis; Medaglia, Adriana; Mourao, Lucivana Prata de Souza; Pereira, Jairo Marques Campos; Persuhn, Darlene Camati; Rufier, Myrthes; Santos, Marcelo; Sobreira, Marise; Elblink, Marcia Triunfol; (2013)
Você já comeu DNA hoje? Divulgação científica durante a Semana da Ciência e Tecnologia no Brasil (/isis/citation/CBB001420704/)

Article Stefanie Samida; (2020)
Über mediale Präsenz und Prominenz DNA-gestützter Vergangenheitsforschung (/isis/citation/CBB693962543/)

Book Wallace, Maurice O.; Smith, Shawn Michelle; (2012)
Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity (/isis/citation/CBB001550214/)

Essay Review Strauss, Bernard S.; (2004)
Rosy and Jim: The Mystery of the Double Helix (/isis/citation/CBB001566358/)

Article Jack S. Cohen; (2021)
History of Research on Antisense Oligonucleotide Analogs (/isis/citation/CBB450691525/)

Book Bernardino Fantini; Fabrizio Rufo; (2017)
Il codice della vita. Una storia della genetica tra scienza e bioetica (/isis/citation/CBB297801530/)

Book Franklin H. Portugal; (2015)
The Least Likely Man: Marshall Nirenberg and the Discovery of the Genetic Code (/isis/citation/CBB914020390/)

Article Rossella Costa; (2017)
From Chemical to Genetic Individuality. Evolving Concepts and Therapeutic Approaches (/isis/citation/CBB900408942/)

Book Mays Hoopes, Laura L.; (2010)
Breaking through the Spiral Ceiling: An American Woman Becomes a DNA Scientist (/isis/citation/CBB001220990/)

Book Dronamraju, Krishna; (2010)
Haldane, Mayr, and Beanbag Genetics (/isis/citation/CBB001022740/)

Chapter Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg; (2012)
Internationalism and the History of Molecular Biology (/isis/citation/CBB001422700/)

Book Olby, Robert; (2009)
Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets (/isis/citation/CBB001021210/)

Authors & Contributors
Wade, Peter
Santos, Ricardo Ventura
López-Beltrán, Carlos
Ernesto Schwartz-Marín
Restrepo, Eduardo
Samida, Stefanie
Concepts
Genetics
DNA; RNA
Race
Molecular biology
Genomics
Biology
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
Places
Latin America
Brazil
Colombia
United States
Mexico
Great Britain
Institutions
National Institute of Health (U.S.)
Stanford University
Institut Pasteur, Paris
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment