5:00-6:30 PM
SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231
Join Science & Justice scholars for an open discussion of Theorizing Race After Race!
At this session, we’ll discuss our funding proposal (which we will circulate in advance), as well as a recap of the January 22 discussion with Herman Gray and Alondra Nelson.
More information on the cluster can be found at: https://scijust.ucsc.edu/2019/05/17/theorizing-race-after-race/.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
12noon-1:30pm Humanities 210
4:00-5:30pm SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231
Join the SJRC and the Center for Cultural Studies for a noon talk and an evening book discussion with Lukas Rieppel.
During the 1920s, a large team of researchers from the New York natural history museum spent nearly a decade exploring the Gobi Desert in Central Asia under the leadership of Roy Chapman Andrews. Their widely publicized goal was to uncover fossil evidence in support of a racially motivated theory promulgated by the Museum’s president, Henry Fairfield Osborn, which located the evolutionary origins of modern humanity in Asia rather than Africa. While Andrews failed to find evidence that Central Asia served as the “cradle of mankind,” his expedition achieved both popular and scientific acclaim for the discovery of fossilized dinosaur eggs. However, when the Guomindang general Chiang Kai-sheck’s military troops arrived in Beijing during the summer of 1928, the expedition was expelled from their base of operations in northern China. Much of the controversy stemmed from a disagreement about specimens. Whereas Chinese intellectuals associated with the nationalist government accused American paleontologists of plundering ancient treasures from Central Asia, Andrews argued that because dinosaurs predated the creation of China, they belonged equally to all mankind. In this talk, Rieppel hopes to use the ensuing debate about whether science ought to be understood as a cosmopolitan endeavor or a technique of imperial expropriation to motivate a critical discussion about the language of “knowledge in transit,” “circulation,” and “circuits of exchange” in recent attempts to produce a less parochial account of knowledge production in a global context.
Lukas Rieppel works at the intersection of the history of science and the history of capitalism, focusing especially on the life, earth, and environmental sciences in nineteenth and early twentieth century North America. Rieppel recently published book Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle (Harvard University Press, 2019), a lively account tracing how dinosaurs became a symbol of American power and prosperity and gripped the popular imagination during the Gilded Age, when their fossil remains were collected and displayed in museums financed by North America’s wealthiest business tycoons. Rieppel co-edited a recent issue of the journal Osiris (with Eugenia Lean & William Deringer) on the theme of “Science & Capitalism: Entangled Histories,” and he has written several essays about fossils, museums, and markets. Rieppel is a David and Michelle Ebersman Assistant Professor of History at Brown University. More information at: https://sites.google.com/view/lukasrieppel/
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
4:00-5:30 PM
SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231
Join SJRC scholars in the SJRC Common Room for an open discussion of works-in-progress! This is a wonderful chance to engage with one another’s ideas, and support our own internal work. At this session, we will hear from UC Santa Cruz Assistant Professor of Politics, Anjuli Verma.
Anjuli’s work-in-progress, The “Percent Black” Trope: Framing Race, Crime, and Justice, seeks to unpack the double-bind of doing statistical analyses that include race variables in research on crime and punishment. In this work, Anjuli revisits and rearticulates quantitative findings in light of the conceptual critique she attempts to develop, which names a pervasive maneuver in late-modern American social science: the “percent black” trope. The “percent black” trope refers to the mode of methodological and theoretical reasoning by which race-related associations are empirically demonstrated but in the absence of causal theory about the mechanisms that would explain associations. At best, underlying processes that might offer explanatory power remain obscured; at worst, the tight coupling of race and the “abnormal” outcome du jour is reified. Either way, as Anjuli’s paper argues, the trope allows racial measurements of “percent black” to stand in for racial mechanisms that need to be identified, and reckoned with, in social inequality research and the political fields of social scientific evidence produced to inform policy and law.
Anjuli Verma is an Assistant Professor of Politics, at UC Santa Cruz, whose research broadly engages questions of punishment and inequality, regime change, and the interplay of legal reform and politics in the governance of crime and punishment.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Doors opened at 6:00pm; talk began at 7:00pm
Kuumbwa Jazz Center (320 Cedar St, Downtown, Santa Cruz)
RSVP was required; tickets were $10 and a limited amount of free student tickets were made available.
The community joined us for a vibrant, stimulating, and challenging conversation on race in America with Alondra Nelson (President, Social Sciences Research Council) and Herman Gray (Emeritus Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Cruz) as moderated by Jenny Reardon (Professor of Sociology and Director of the Science & Justice Research Center, UC Santa Cruz).
The racially charged moment we are living through in the U.S. comes with tremendous danger, but also with great opportunity. The dangers are obvious— blatantly racist statements by our president, the emboldenment of white supremacist movements, the rampant loss of black life at the hands of the police, the demonizing of immigrants, rampant Islamophobia and so on. Yet it is a time of tremendous opportunity—with the most racially diverse Congress ever, a diverse pool of Presidential candidates, growing national discussions about reparations for slavery, vibrant grassroots movements for racial justice emerging across the country. There have also been some remarkable efforts in recent years to try to come to terms with the shame of America’s racially oppressive history and move forward on more firm footing for racial justice.
Herman Gray is Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz and has published widely in the areas of black cultural theory, politics, and media. Most recently, Gray co-edited Racism Postrace with Roopali Mukherjee, Sarah Banet-Weiser.
Alondra Nelson, President of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, is an acclaimed researcher and author, who explores questions of science, technology, and social inequality. Nelson’s books include, Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination; and The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. She is coeditor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History (with Keith Wailoo and Catherine Lee) and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (with Thuy Linh N. Tu). Nelson serves on the board of directors of the Teagle Foundation and the Data & Society Research Institute. She is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and of the Hastings Center, and is an elected Member of the Sociological Research Association.
The event was co-sponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation, the Science & Justice Research Center, NAACP of Santa Cruz County, ACLU Northern California Santa Cruz County Chapter, and Inner Light Ministries.
An announcement of the event appears in this campus news article.
Leading up to the event, SJRC Director Jenny Reardon and Herman Gray interviewed on race in America in January 2020 by Chris Benner (Director of the Institute for Social Transformation).
“Racial Reconciliation and the Future of Race in America” brought together a group of three long-time friends and intellectual interlocutors for an intimate conversation with an overflowing audience at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in downtown Santa Cruz. Jenny Reardon, who served as moderator, described how Herman Gray’s work on race in the media has been pathbreaking for many scholars, including Alondra Nelson. For a long time now, they have wanted to engage in conversation with Dr. Gray, and the recent formation of the Theorizing Race After Race working group presented a perfect opportunity to bring these three scholars together in dialogue.
From left to right: Jenny Reardon, Alondra Nelson, and Herman Gray in dialogue
The conversation included an array of themes including contemporary media; genealogy and genetic ancestry testing; reparations; our polarized nation; the term ‘post-racial’; and the status of the social sciences today. The three panelists discussed the challenges and opportunities of the present moment for understanding and creating social change around race, racism, and reparations in the United States, with the focus mainly on African American history and Black cultural studies. Framing the conversation and introducing the three panelists, Chris Benner, Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz and Director of the Institute for Social Transformation on campus, referenced Michelle Alexander’s January 17 New York Times opinion piece, stating that with the urgency of this moment in our country’s history, “We don’t want to be in denial that the injustice of this moment is an aberration. Conditions of injustice have thrived throughout our history, as have the aspirational movements for and toward an inclusive democracy.”
Dr. Reardon began by asking a series of questions, with the conversation lasting about one hour, before opening it up to questions from the audience. The conversation centered around the expertise and most recent books of Dr. Gray and Dr. Nelson. Herman Gray recently co-edited a volume, Racism Postrace (2019), while Alondra Nelson recently published The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome (2016).
Dr. Reardon launched the conversation by asking their thoughts about a new HBO show, The Watchmen, which brilliantly brings together and cuts across the panelists’ expertise: the relationships between science and technology – specifically genealogy and genetic ancestry – and race; and televisual media as a form of both social critique and speculative world-building. The Watchmen, based on the 1986 & 1987 graphic novel of the same name, takes place in an alternate-reality United States in which the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon remained president for decades, and Robert Redford then assumes the presidency and oversees the passage of an act which provides reparations for descendants of victims of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Race Massacre in 1921. In this reimagined U.S., the passage of the pejoratively named “Redfordations” has sparked a backlash and uprising by white supremacists in Tulsa.
For the panelists, the show succeeds in leaving viewers slightly off-kilter; it scrambles conventional ways of understanding history and trauma, memory and subjectivity, particularly for African Americans. The show also scrambles temporalities: it plays with the possibilities of the past and prospects for the future, denying any clear narrative of progress from a more racist and unjust past to a more just present. For Dr. Nelson, the show succeeds in part because it is sci-fi: realism would not be able to capture the traumas of the past and their effect on memory and lived experience of African Americans that this show captures. It “Makes fun of the absurdity and profundity of racial violence… time gets snatched, people get snatched… The temporality starting and stopping is sometimes out of the control of marginalized communities.” However, the show is also of the horror genre for Dr. Nelson, as it deals with the genealogy of the Klan and the masking of everyone – superheroes, cops, white supremacists. The horror – the inability to know or not know who is a white supremacist – subtends the science fictional reimagination of the U.S. in the show.
The Watchmen also brings in real life Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who in the show plays the US Secretary of Commerce and guides African Americans in Tulsa through submitting DNA samples into a machine to find out whether they are eligible for reparations. This intersects with the work done in Dr. Nelson’s book who, through her ethnographic work with early African American adopters of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic ancestry testing tools, investigated how and why people use genetic genealogy to make sense of their family’s history, especially in the contextual ‘afterlife’ of slavery and colonialism. Further, Dr. Gray made important connections between the entrepreneurial market logic of this show’s power and why television as a site of circulation is so fascinating: the ways in which memory and trauma attempt to gain cultural standing are tied in with the “marketability of the very idea.” Why, how, and when do certain cultural forms – such as African American trauma, historical but also lived in the ongoing present – become marketable to a mass television audience?
The conversation also touched on the similarities and differences between the Obama and Trump presidencies, with the theme of ‘postrace’ serving as a kind of touchstone which panelists repeatedly referred back to. For Dr. Gray and the co-editors of their Racism Postrace volume, their title does productive work by framing how proclamations of a postracial society further normalize racism and obscure structural anti-blackness. For Dr. Gray, “postrace is a kind of ideology of racism. It’s a set of ideas, dependent on race and racialization, about why race does or does not matter, in the aftermath of the Obama election.” However, postrace also marks the moment in which racializing logics and discourses are being challenged with a vengeance by mass social movements in the U.S.. Dr. Nelson also remarked on how the election of Donald Trump shattered any ideas about a clear teleological narrative of a ‘postracial’ U.S.: a “fantasy story that we told ourselves about race in this country. Now that’s been shattered, the spell has been broken.” Speaking about the case for reparations, for Dr. Nelson, Trump’s presidency has “moved us out of a space asking, is there something owed? Now the line is much more clear,” that something – reparations – is owed to African Americans.
When Dr. Reardon asked why reparations as a particular kind of racial politics have gained more prominence in this moment, referencing Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2014 Atlantic article, “The Case for Reparations,” Dr. Nelson commented that for some communities reparations has always been at the forefront of their political consciousness and activities: “The question of now is really about a longer drumbeat that goes back to the nineteenth or even eighteenth century.” Why, then, did Coates’s article make such a splash, and why do reparations remain at the forefront of African American racial politics? For Dr. Nelson, reparations and what they represent are sufficiently polarizing: “The necessary conditions for a kind of white supremacist emergence, are the necessary conditions for a galvanizing around reparations. And that is just – the most extraordinary thing. Those polar energies bring it to the fore now.”
Perhaps even more importantly, for both Dr. Nelson and Dr. Gray, Coates was able to use his extraordinary talent as a storyteller to link the ‘everyday’ to the ‘structural.’ In his essay, Coates demonstrates how the legacy of structural economic racism – beginning with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade – gets carried forward into the future and impacts upon African American families and their everyday lives. Dr. Gray discussed how the ‘afterlife of slavery’ is tied into structural conditions – how wealth (or lack of wealth) is reproduced over generations: Coates demonstrated how even black families living in Chicago, who do their best to be ‘good citizens,’ who pay their rent and bills on time, find out after forty years of living there that they own nothing. They have not been able to build any wealth of their own.
The final two questions from Dr. Reardon asked about, first, the status of the social sciences today, and second, what hope in this moment might look like and where it might come from. Interestingly, these two themes converged and diverged in unexpected ways. Dr. Nelson, who is current president of the Social Science Research Council, replied that the social sciences need to become more nuanced in our thinking about historical change. We tend to think in terms of paradigms and periods such as the pre- and post-periods of agrarian and industrial revolutions and we tend to place temporal boundaries around historical events. However, in the world these historical events all interweave, both seamlessly and not. Thus, we must develop tools to become nimbler in thinking about how these historical events intermesh, not in a historical-additive model, but in a more dynamic, recursive mode of occurrence. It is not simply that we have been led to this current ‘neoliberal moment,’ but the important questions become: what do we mean by neoliberalism? What other forms of governance and political economy and historically racializing processes does neoliberalism coexist with?
Dr. Nelson also reminded us that while WEB Du Bois began his long career fully believing in the power of the social sciences to build objective knowledge that could tackle structural problems of inequality, by the end of his career he had become disillusioned and felt they were not up to the task of creating meaningful social change. However, for Dr. Nelson, this does not mean that we should lose hope in the social sciences. For her, the social sciences, even with their limitations, can help us think in nuanced ways around language and concepts used by scientists and by the public. For example, sociologists of science have been able to offer much nuance to geneticists surrounding the language they use to talk about race and racial categories. In what precise ways do race and ethnicity get used by geneticists, and how do these terms and categories confound or help clarify their experimental research? Sociology is primed to help think through these sorts of questions. Lastly, for Dr. Nelson, there is hope in social scientists finding a common purpose with other organizations and movements, working toward common goals to create social change.
Dr. Gray also provided an illuminating answer, simultaneously encompassing the limitations and the hope that may come out of the social sciences. He referenced Roderick Ferguson’s book, Aberrations in Black – which begins with a scene from Marlon Riggs’s experimental documentary Tongues Untied. In the scene, an African American person is walking around a lake – they perform gender as a woman but their sexuality remains ambiguous. Dr. Gray takes this example to do the work of what Dr. Nelson had just mentioned: “the capacity of the person exceeds social science’s ability to understand them.” This scene highlights the limits of representation and the troubles with normative categorizing that the social sciences highly value. If representation necessarily fails to a degree, and cannot fulfill its promises toward knowledge, the point then becomes acknowledging and working with excess – representational and categorical excess, and excesses of legibility. Dr. Gray wants to push social scientists to work in the space of these excesses, to trouble normative sensibilities of what gendered and raced subjects are expected to perform. He believes the social sciences are capable of doing this necessary work. In addition to social science, Dr. Gray himself turns to the cultural realm, specifically the sonic – music and imagination, jazz and blues – as a source of hope.
A running theme throughout the conversation, which I believe allows for an appropriate note to end this report on, concerned ‘the conditions of possibility’ which are necessary for social movements to arise and grow. Dr. Reardon quoted from an interview with black cultural theorist Paul Gilroy, who in the early 2000s believed that genetics would be a tool that allowed for the world to transcend race since human genomes are around 99.8% the same. Paul Gilroy in his interview admits that he was wrong about genetics but does not apologize because he was looking for hope, and he will continue looking. As the panelists discussed, how does hope structure conditions of possibility? What were the conditions of possibility through which Obama became elected, and through which Coates’s 2014 reparations article was able to make such a splash? And what conditions of possibility will become necessary for both narrow and mass social movements to flourish – ones which continue protesting police brutality such as Black Lives Matter and allied ones which focus on structural change of racist, political economic systems at the broadest levels?
This genre of question leaves the ending open-ended, a maneuver which resonates with the work of Ruha Benjamin, who recently presented her work at a SJRC event. Dr. Benjamin argues that in order to fight the growth of ‘The New Jim Code,’ including racializing technologies and algorithms, social movements need to intervene at the level of the imagination. I believe Dr. Gray and Dr. Nelson both argue for this too, finding hope in the social sciences and coming to the social sciences through other modes and mediums of hope. Both scholars’ work, along with Dr. Reardon’s, has and will continue to center on realizing the conditions of possibility for these imaginative interventions, so deeply needed to sprout and flourish across our shared world.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
4:00-6:00 PM
Join SJRC scholars for an open discussion of works-in-progress! This is a wonderful chance to engage with one another’s ideas, and support our own internal work. At this session, longtime friend and SJRC colleague, Alondra Nelson, will discuss with us her current work on precision medicine.
Alondra Nelson, President of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, is an acclaimed researcher and author, who explores questions of science, technology, and social inequality. Nelson’s books include, Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination; and The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. She is coeditor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History (with Keith Wailoo and Catherine Lee) and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (with Thuy Linh N. Tu). Nelson serves on the board of directors of the Teagle Foundation and the Data & Society Research Institute. She is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and of the Hastings Center, and is an elected Member of the Sociological Research Association.
Co-Sponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute.
Tuesdays 10:00am-1:00pm
SJRC Common Room, Oakes 231
Wanting to establish a regular writing routine exploring science and justice? Beginning Tuesday January 21st, join SJRC scholars in the SJRC Common Room from 10:00am to 1:00pm for open writing sessions! Engage in six 25-minute writing sessions (with a 5 minute break in between). Open to all students, faculty and visiting scholars.
We will continue to schedule quarterly writing sessions based on interest and availability. For more information or to express interest, please contact SJRC Graduate Student Researcher Dennis Browe (sociology).
Wednesday, December 04, 2019
4:00-6:00 PM
Engineering 2, 599
Co-authors Neda Atanasoski (UCSC Feminist Studies, CRES) and Kalindi Vora (UC Davis Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies) will present on their new book Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures (Duke University Press, March 2019), with responses by CRES Director Christine Hong and SJRC Director Jenny Reardon. A dessert reception will follow.
Neda Atanasoski is Professor of Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Humanitarian Violence: The U.S. Deployment of Diversity.
Kalindi Vora is Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Davis, and author of Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of Outsourced Labor.
Co-Sponsored by Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and The Humanities Institute.
Tuesday, December 03
4:00-6:00pm
Namaste Lounge
Science & Justice Visiting Scholar and UC Santa Cruz Anthropology Alum, Cris Hughes, unites academics and forensic practitioners to discuss historical and current field training, genomic technological applications in forensic investigations, the problems and limits of interpretation, the resources available, and the incentives practitioners face tied to case resolution.
In addition, the event will focus on the societal and ethical questions raised by novel uses of genetics/genomics in forensics work. Think Golden Gate killer case, in which law enforcement used a publicly available server with genomic information from thousands of individuals who have completed commercial ancestry kits, to find potential leads for the assailant in question, a use not anticipated by many users of this ‘recreational’ service. There are also many difficult questions about whether and how DNA technologies are being used to identify ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity.’ As with any science with a public impact, thinking critically about the balance between ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Social Implications) concerns and the need to solve cases is an essential part of responsible science. For example, looking at police and lay perceptions of race, ancestry, and physical appearance, as well as the caveats with new genetic tools like HIrisPlex and Parabon’s® Snapshot® that are being incorporated into case investigations at an alarming rate.
This event follows the outcomes of the recently launched Forensic Genomics for Investigators course first offered for California investigators through P.O.S.T. November 12, 2019 here in Santa Cruz.
Bridget F.B. Algee-Hewitt is a biological anthropologist at Stanford University who studies skeletal and genetic trait variation in modern humans. Her research combines data analytic and hands-on laboratory approaches to the estimation of the personal identity parameters – like sex, ancestry, stature, and age – that are essential components of the biological profile used in forensic identification of unknown human remains and for the paleodemographic reconstruction of past population histories in bioarchaeology. Concerns for social justice, human rights, and issues of group disparities underlie much of her work. As a practicing forensic anthropologist and geneticist, she provides forensic casework consultation to the medico-legal community.
Ed Green is an Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UCSC and a principle investigator for the Paleogenomics lab. The Green lab, is interested in genome biology, particularly focused on the problems of assembly and comparative genome analysis. Recent and ongoing projects include genome-scale analysis of archaic human genome sequence, comparative genomics of Crocodilia, and the development of new methods to assemble high quality de novo genomes. The lab is also interested in applying high-throughput sequencing to address questions in molecular biology including the evolution of gene expression, alternative splicing, and population genetics.
Lars Fehren-Schmitz is both a physical anthropology professor at UCSC and principle investigator for the Human Paleogenomics lab. His research focuses on furthering the understanding of South American population history through altitude adaptation and human-environment systems.
Cris Hughes is a forensic anthropologist interested in perceptions of race, and the use of ancestry in both forensic investigations and the practice of forensic anthropology. Cris uses genetic and skeletal data to study estimates of ancestry in present day Latin American populations and is particularly interested in how ancestry as a piece of information drawn from the body, can impact the identification process of that person. As an Assistant Clinical Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cris has lectured at annual Genomics for™ workshops (e.g. Genomics for™ Teachers, Genomics for™ Judges, Genomics for™ Prosecutors, and Genomics for™ Police) since 2013 as an outreach affiliate for the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the UIUC. Recently, Cris’ work with ancestry is centered around the deaths of migrants along the US-Mexico border. Cris is a visiting scholar with the UC Santa Cruz Science & Justice Research Center, and UC Santa Cruz Anthropology alum.
Co-Sponsored By: The UC Santa Cruz Science & Justice Research Center, the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation, Colleges Nine and Ten, the Anthropology and Sociology Departments, the Human Paleogenomics Lab, the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, The Humanities Institute, and the Center for Racial Justice.
Forensic Genomics: New Frontiers and New Considerations aimed to explore the big-picture issues of recent, rapid advancements in forensic genomics through an ELSI lens (ethical, legal, & social implications) of novel technologies. Jenny Reardon, Founding Director of the Science & Justice Research Center (SJRC), gave introductory remarks highlighting how this topic – the entanglements of race and genomics – has been a long-standing concern and an ongoing line of inquiry within the SJRC. Thus, for Dr. Reardon, hosting this event was a delight as it is part of a constellation of events and working groups. This event also served as a public follow-up to the recently launched Forensic Genomics for Investigators course first offered for investigators through California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) on November 12, 2019 in partnership with SJRC, the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.
As the lead course instructor and event’s convener and moderator, Dr. Cris Hughes (Assistant Clinical Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and S&J Visiting Scholar), began with an overview of the current state of genomic technologies, their use in forensic investigations by law enforcement for solving crimes, and the vital ethical and societal issues raised by these technologies that must be attended to. If the main tension raised during this event could be summarized in one thought, it would be: How can the growing use of forensic genomics to serve the needs of law enforcement for solving violent crimes be balanced against concerns about both privacy and malfunctions of justice that many have when it comes to increased surveillance by law enforcement? Or, how are novel forensic genomics tools actually being used, how can they be used, and how should they be used?
Dr. Hughes began by reviewing how DNA is used in forensic investigations by law enforcement. A multi-state DNA-database pilot program was established by the FBI in 1990, which then expanded into a national DNA database after Congress passed the DNA Identification Act in 1994. The database is known as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). Using the genetic markers in the database for identification of DNA allows investigators to make a 1:1 match – there is such high probability that many think of it as a purely objective decision. However, even during the founding of CODIS, many raised questions about the privacy implications of our government managing DNA from individuals; The government responded by arguing that CODIS was a database, first, for offenders only, and second, that CODIS used genetic markers only from the “junk DNA” region of the genome, meaning that since this is not a protein-coding region there would be no threats to privacy of individuals. Part of the impetus of this event is that the notion of “junk DNA” is turning out to be misleading, as there are more identifiable genetic markers in this “junk” region of the genome than previously assumed.
Dr. Hughes assessed the pros and cons of using CODIS for forensic investigations. The database, being wrapped in bureaucratic regulations, is steady and accurate when it works. It has gone through decades of validation and analysis and there is extensive consistency in the methods used for interacting with CODIS. Also, since CODIS is tied in with a multitude of laws and regulations, change to using the system and database comes very slowly: this allows for time to assess and critique ELSI impacts related to its procedures. However, the nature of CODIS as slow-moving and heavily regulated places limits on the capabilities that investigators have for working with DNA evidence. Since forensic genetic technologies are rapidly evolving, for Dr. Hughes and others it is necessary to question the benefits and drawbacks of CODIS compared to novel methods that could be used by law enforcement for solving crimes. Dr. Hughes stated that we are again at a moment of “new tech, old concerns: privacy and surveillance, bias, policy and regulation, etc.”
Each expert panel member then presented on how they work with forensic genomics either directly or indirectly, also highlighting the tensions of and in their work. Bridget F.B. Algee- Hewitt, a biological anthropologist at Stanford working at the intersections of forensic science, computational biology, and social justice, helps to identify the bodies of migrants who have died crossing the US-Mexico border, highlighting a kind of double-edged sword of forensic technologies. Her work on CODIS STRs (a type of genetic marker, which she then matches to SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) in CODIS) can help migrant families identify their lost loved ones, but these scientific techniques can simultaneously help ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) with its surveillance and targeting of migrants for punitive purposes.
A tension surfaced between the other two panelists’ presentations in a humorous way, which, tellingly, captures the main tension of forensic genomics identified by Dr. Hughes: finding a balance between working with law enforcement to solve crimes and being wary of law enforcement due to its history of perpetuating injustices against communities it has sworn to protect (as evidenced by the long history of the racism of U.S. police as a whole). During his presentation, Lars Fehren-Schmitz (associate professor of physical anthropology at UCSC), quipped that he is hesitant to work with law enforcement (presumably for the reasons just mentioned). Ed Green (associate professor of biomolecular engineering at UCSC) then replied by stating that he “likes working with the police, a lot. If someone gets murdered, they [the perpetrator] should be caught.” Further, in opposition to worries about increased surveillance that may come about through novel forensic genomics technologies, Dr. Green feels that there is a “democratization of genomics and forensics happening. It is more citizen-driven.” Riding this tension in its many dimensions will continue to be a key issue as these technologies develop which threaten the ubiquitous use of the FBI’s CODIS database, especially as law enforcement offices are beginning to look to outside labs for their assumed superior technical capabilities (and their lack of regulations) to conduct forensic DNA investigations.
A fast-paced discussion with the audience then followed, covering a number of topics:
Accreditation standards and best practices: Dr. Hughes questioned whether new forensics labs should be expected to adhere to the same standards of labs using CODIS DNA, since many of these emerging labs lack accreditation standards. The panelists weighed the pros and cons of accreditation – what it can help with and what it might fail to cover. For Dr. Fehren-Schmitz, accreditation gives some semblance of security (if a lab is accredited it is assumed that it will follow best practices and do good science), yet, in his experience, just having these policies and procedures in place does not necessarily guarantee the best results. He gave an example of how relying on being accredited can actually lead to lazy scientific practice. Dr. Hughes then touched
on the question of best practices: making best practices too specific requires a massive amount of labor to continually update guidelines to keep up with quickly emerging forensic technologies, yet if best practices guidelines are too general they won’t actually regulate anything. For example, the use of familial searching of genealogical databases by investigators is highly regulated on a state-by-state basis. Perhaps, offered Dr. Hughes, focusing on policy regulation is more necessary than accreditation itself?
Assisting law enforcement with informed decision-making processes: related to best practices is the question of how to help law enforcement decide what forensic technologies and labs to use or not use. How, for example, can we help law enforcement vet particular high-quality (ideally not-for-profit) labs over other labs? How can forensic geneticists aid law enforcement in making these decisions? Dr. Green mentioned one “obvious thing”: make sure to communicate the technical aspects of what cannot be done with the DNA versus what can be done from the very beginning of responding to requests by law enforcement. For Dr. Hughes, one issue is that law enforcement is expected to be experts in everything, which leads to a lack of specific knowledge in technical aspects of crime solving such as using DNA evidence. She would like to build a network of scientific consultants that aren’t necessarily tied to for-profit forensic labs, to help law enforcement vet which labs to turn to for DNA analysis and technical assistance.
Scientific genetic literacy: For Dr. Fehren-Schmitz, the question of assisting with informed decision-making processes is tied directly to scientific literacy (or lack thereof) concerning genetics of the general population and even law enforcement offices. He stated that “we can make it seem like magic because people don’t have basic information about how genetic information is inherited, what genotypes and phenotypes are.” Thus, the market is open for things like “Soccer DNA,” a company that uses genetic pseudoscience to tell customers if their DNA gives them a natural talent for excelling at soccer. Dr. Algee-Hewitt agreed with this, stating that “nothing makes [her] life more difficult than seeing commercials for direct-to- consumer genetic ancestry testing.” These commercials advance the concept that, say, a value of 7% “Scandinavian” or “East Asian” DNA is an important part of the customer’s identity; yet, as geneticists know, such a small value is often not a meaningful value (if itis within the range of error). For her, a main job for scientists is to relay quality information to the general public and to push back against the dissemination of false information such as that being pushed in these commercials.
National Differences: The issue was raised about national differences in ways that forensic scientists are asked to work with law enforcement. The details matter, and any discussions must be situated within the contexts of national laws, regulations, and accepted best practices. For example, in different countries, forensic experts will have different roles to play in the criminal case: in some countries scientists will be asked to testify in trials as expert witnesses while in other countries experts will never participate in a trial but will provide the scientific legwork for law enforcement to press charges. Here, Dr. Algee-Hewitt stressed a key point: the science must be done well. If the DNA forensics work does not get done right, from the very beginning, nothing in the investigative case will get done properly. For her, concerned as she is with questions of social justice, DNA forensics is never just a number or a case, but is much bigger, with implications that will greatly affect families and communities.
Looking Toward the Future: With the rapid development of technologies for forensic genomics, Dr. Hughes stressed that a key theme of the event was looking toward the future: “What do we do with the potential of these new technologies?” For example, as both Dr. Green and Dr. Algee-Hewitt demonstrated, we now know “there is no real junk DNA.” Whereas CODIS, built in the early 1990s, was premised on the fact that certain genetic markers would help identify and match individuals based on their DNA profiles but tell nothing else, scientists are increasingly showing how related genetic markers can potentially (probabilistically) reveal much more about a person, such as their ancestry and other traits.
Dr. Hughes ended the event by making a case and a plea for the importance of building bridges between scientists, the public, and law enforcement: she and others at SJRC and beyond are continuing to build a table for many to gather around to discuss the growing uses of forensic genomics and how we are able to respond to the need for expanded genetic literacy by offering future iterations of the Forensic Genomics for Investigators course. For Dr. Hughes, we must put front-and-center vital questions about the balance between maximizing the utility of this science and raising concomitant questions of ethics and justice.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, November 21/22/23, 2019
All Day – check official website for more information; and read the GoodTimes article.
For two hundred years, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has haunted our days and chilled our dreaming nights. Delve into the enduring legacy of the first science-fiction horror story with FRANKENCON! Kicking off the three days is a back-to-back film screening on November 21 in downtown Santa Cruz, followed by a two-day conference of scientists, theorists, and artists, November 22-23, 2019 at UC Santa Cruz.
In the centuries since Mary Shelley first penned the novel, the lore and magic of Frankenstein has molded the modern genre of science fiction. With the explosive proliferation of golems, robots, monsters of artificial intelligence and genetically-engineered dinosaurs, Frankenstein and its cultural progeny have come to dominate cultural discussions about the ethics of science, the problems of modernity, the obligations of parents and children, the painful act of creation itself.
NEWS: following the conference article, “The Problem is Not Monsters” was published in the Journal of Science and Engineering Ethics on the impacts Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein has had on discussions of scientific ethics featuring the panelists.
FILM SCREENINGS: Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
DNA’s Comedy Lab & Experimental Theatre (off-campus event)
155 S. River Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Two back-to-back film screenings at 7PM and 8:30PM followed by a film talk + Q&A led by some of Santa Cruz’s biggest monster experts.
Panelists: Steve Palopoli (Good Times editor), Michael Chemers (UCSC Theater Arts), Renee Fox (UCSC Literature), Tad Leckman (UCSC Computational Media)
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: The Legacy of Frankenstein
The conference opens with a discussion of the impact of Frankenstein on the last two centuries of literature, theater, film, and games.
Panelists: Marshall Leicester (Literature), micha cárdenas (AGPM), Renée Fox (Literature), Michael Chemers (Theater Arts)
A performance of The Frankenstein Project, a feminist and biotechnology-fueled play adaptation of Frankenstein, written and directed by Kirsten Brandt. (Please note: attendance at the conference does not include tickets to the play.) BUY TICKETS TO THE PLAY.
Q&A with the cast and crew of The Frankenstein Project and conference participants.
Focus on Kiersten White
A conversation with New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White on the development of her novel, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, with audience Q&A.
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Science & Ethics
What is “mad science” and how do we guard ourselves against it? What has Frankenstein taught scientists and cultural critics about the dangers of science without conscience? Panelists: George Blumenthal (Astronomy & Astrophysics), David Haussler (Genomics Institute), Nandini Bhattacharya (Mathematics) and Jenny Reardon (Science & Justice Research Center).
CONFERENCE FOCUS: Jennifer Haley
A conversation with playwright and TV writer Jennifer Haley about the ways she combines technology and horror in her writing (The Nether, Hemlock Grove, Mindhunter), with audience Q&A.
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Adapting Frankenstein
In this panel, three artistic creators discuss their relationship to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the challenges/delights of reinterpreting its themes for modern audiences. Panelists: Kiersten White, Jennifer Haley, and Kirsten Brandt
Dessert reception for all guests and attendees!
UCSC Theater Arts
FrankenCon 2019 is presented by The Humanities Institute and The Division of the Arts at UC Santa Cruz, with the support of Porter College, Crown College, the Science & Justice Research Center, the Theater Arts Department, Oakes College, and the Department of Art & Design: Games & Playable Media; and with the generosity of our friends at DNA’s Comedy Lab & Experimental Theatre and Good Times Santa Cruz.
More information can be found at: https://frankencon.sites.ucsc.edu/.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
7:10-8:45pm Cultural Center at Merrill
Hosted by the Crown College Core Course (Ethical and Political Implications of Emerging Technologies) and the Science & Justice Research Center, with an introduction on Indigenous STS from Kim TallBear.
Jessica Kolopenuk will present a talk titled, “Visions of Star Women: A Cree Theory of Canada’s National Missing Person’s DNA Program.”
Kim TallBear (UCSC HistCon, SJRC Advisor) Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment. She is building a research hub in Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society (www.IndigenousSTS.com). Follow them at @indigenous_sts. TallBear is author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). Her Indigenous STS work recently turned to also address decolonial and Indigenous sexualities. She founded a University of Alberta arts-based research lab and co-produces the sexy storytelling show, Tipi Confessions, sparked by the popular Austin, Texas show, Bedpost Confessions. Building on lessons learned with geneticists about how race categories get settled, TallBear is working on a book that interrogates settler-colonial commitments to settlement in place, within disciplines, and within monogamous, state-sanctioned marriage. She is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota. She tweets @KimTallBear and @CriticalPoly.
Co-sponsored by: the Science & Justice Research Center, Crown College, Baskin Engineering Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the American Indian Resource Center, the Human Paleogenomics Lab, The Humanities Institute, the Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation, the departments of Anthropology Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness and Sociology, and UCSCs Women in Science and Engineering.