Decoding Racial Ideology in Genomics
By (author) Johnny E. Williams Foreword by Joseph L. Graves
Publication date:
27 May 2016Length of book:
176 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739148952
Although the human genome exists apart from society, knowledge about it is produced through socially-created language and interactions. As such, genomicists’ thinking is informed by their inability to escape the wake of the ‘race’ concept. This book investigates how racism makes genomics and how genomics makes racism and ‘race,’ and the consequences of these constructions. Specifically, Williams explores how racial ideology works in genomics. The simple assumption that frames the book is that ‘race’ as an ideology justifying a system of oppression is persistently recreated as a practical and familiar way to understand biological reality. This book reveals that genomicists’ preoccupation with ‘race’—regardless of good or ill intent—contributes to its perception as a category of differences that is scientifically rigorous.
Decoding Racial Ideology in Genomics makes a major contribution to the study of race and ethnicity, knowledge, health and medicine, and the social construction of whiteness.