Pelvimetry and the persistance of racial science in obstetrics

Endeavour ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Racial Science

Prophets and Profits of Racial Science

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruha Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Precision Medicine ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Racial Ethnic

In this response to Terence Keel and John Hartigan’s debate over the social construction of race, I aim to push the discussion beyond the terrain of epistemology and ideology to examine the contested value of racial science in a broader political economy. I build upon Keel’s concern that even science motivated by progressive aims may reproduce racist thinking and Hartigan’s proposition that a critique of racial science cannot rest on the beliefs and intentions of scientists. In examining the value of racial-ethnic classifications in pharmacogenomics and precision medicine, I propose that analysts should attend to the relationship between prophets of racial science (those who produce forecasts about inherent group differences) and profits of racial science (the material-semiotic benefits of such forecasts). Throughout, I draw upon the idiom of speculation—as a narrative, predictive, and financial practice—to explain how the fiction of race is made factual, again and again. 

scholarly journals 'Whether black or white – united in the fight!' Connecting the resistance against colonialism, racism, and fascism in the European metropoles, 1926-1936

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (18) ◽  
pp. 126-149
Author(s):  
Kasper Braskén
Keyword(s):  
The Third ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
The World ◽  
United Front

This article focuses on the ways in which anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and anti-fascism were intertwined within the Third Period, and the extent to which these ideals were already being drawn together in the preceding era of the United Front. Drawing heavily on the articles and imagery of Willi Münzenberg's Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung, the piece demonstrates the ways in which communist anti-fascist campaigning around the world facilitated the development of sophisticated anti-racist arguments which aimed at undermining the ideological basis of fascist movements and colonial rulers alike. It evidences the extent to which communists felt that countering the pseudoscience of race could play an important role in numerous facets of their campaigning. Furthermore, it highlights the attempts by activists and writers to develop a conception of anti-fascism and anti-colonialism as mutually-reinforcing strategies which could be deployed in tandem, and the ways that this ideological interweaving was drawn into campaigns both against the Nazis' use of racial science to justify anti-Semitic policy, and fascist Italy's invasion of Ethiopia based on Social Darwinist precepts.

scholarly journals Mixed messages: Racial science and local identity in Bali and Lombok, 1938–39

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-425
Author(s):  
Fenneke Sysling
Keyword(s):  
Local Communities ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Mixed Messages

This article explores how the islands of Bali and Lombok were racialised through the work of Dutch racial scientist J.P. Kleiweg de Zwaan in the 1930s. An examination of both Kleiweg's published works and his local practices draws attention to the fact that racialisation occurred at different moments of anthropological work, producing different outcomes. The article concludes that anthropologists communicated different versions of racial ideas to international academics and to local communities. The Bali-Aga and Sasak, who were measured, described and photographed by anthropologists, appropriated racial categories which they found meaningful.

Premature Predicaments

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-58
Author(s):  
Dána-Ain Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Birth Outcomes ◽  
Premature Birth ◽  
Harriet Jacobs ◽  
Birth Stories ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

This chapter examines the definitions of prematurity over time and specifically explores how racial science has been used to animate the definitions and etiology, or causes, of premature birth. This chapter focuses on the birth stories of four women, who gave birth prematurely in different centuries, between the nineteenth century and the present, to shed light on the temporality of Black women’s birth outcomes. The birth stories, including one contained in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, an autobiographical narrative by Harriet Jacobs, highlight questions about the definition and etiology of prematurity. The stories also illustrate some of the clinical causes of premature birth and present the situations that women describe as evidence of medical racism.

Measuring Heads, Reading Faces

2018 ◽  
pp. 169-236
Author(s):  
Alasdair Pettinger
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Racial Science

The fourth chapter takes off from Douglass’s meeting in Edinburgh with the phrenologist George Combe in order to investigate Douglass’ complex attitudes towards mid-century racial science and visual culture. Douglass’ own suspicion of the prevailing assumption that physical appearance offered a reliable guide to character was intensified by the awareness that the novelty of his appearance was drawing audiences, already familiar with the performances of blackface minstrel troupes, which toured Scotland at the same time. It also helps to explain his willingness to overrule his Irish publisher over which portrait to use for the frontispiece of a new edition of his Narrative, after arriving in Glasgow with only a few copies left. Following the dispute in some detail, the chapter goes on to suggest why Douglass disliked the first portrait so much and took great pains to have it replaced.

Creating the Coloured Other in South Africa in Light of the “Jewish Question” in Germany

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 202-228
Author(s):  
Handri Walters ◽  
C.S. (Kees) van der Waal
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
New Targets ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Abstract This article offers a response to Warren Goldstein’s analysis of the racialisation of the “Jewish Question.” By analysing the role of Scripture, Afrikaner nationalism and racial science in the production of apartheid, we argue that the insights shared by Goldstein as related to the “Jewish Question” sparks a fertile reflection on the “Coloured Question” in South Africa. While the outcomes differed, the correlations are to be found in the processes of othering that preceded and accompanied them. We explore the entangled nature of theology, biology, and politics in the racialisation, and subsequent othering, of the coloured category (where resonances with the Jewish example are to be found). By illustrating the similarities and differences between the “Jewish Question” and the “Coloured Question,” what is offered here is a piece to think with as the process of othering finds new targets in an increasingly polarised world.

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