Episode 4
Race, Identity, Reparations, and the Role of Ancestral DNA Testing ft. Alondra Nelson
January 27, 2020
In this episode, Shobita and Jack answer listener questions, discuss Jack's trip to the weird world of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and talk to Professor Alondra Nelson about the social life of ancestral DNA testing. Professor Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, and President of the Social Science Research Council.
Study Questions:
What can you learn about a technology by asking “why is this thing sticking around”?
In what ways was the individualist legal framework in the US unable to address the communitarian petition by the African Americans who sued contemporary companies over reparations for slavery?
How do DNA testing companies build credibility/trust when their algorithms are proprietary and how is that different from how academic research builds trust?
What was the controversy between the scientists who wanted to provide ancestry tests as a non-profit and those who wanted to create for-profit companies?
LINKS RELATED TO OUR INTERVIEW WITH ALONDRA NELSON:
Alondra Nelson (2016). The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. Boston: Beacon Press. (this page also provides links to supporting information, e.g., articles, reviews, about the book.)
"Who should receive Reparations for Slavery and Discrimination?" The New Yorker Radio Hour. May 24, 2019.
Ann Morning, Hannah Brückner, and Alondra Nelson (2019). "Socially Desirable Reporting and the Expression of Biological Concepts of Race." Dubois Review: Social Science Research on Race. (This article was discussed in a recent article in The New York Times: Amy Harmon (2019). "Can Biology Class Reduce Racism?" The New York Times. December 7.
Alondra Nelson (2019). "The return of eugenics" in "Books for our time: seven classics that speak to us now", Nature. December 13.
Alondra Nelson (2019). Lecture on "Genetics and Ethics in the Obama Administration". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. March 28. Video.
mentioned Links:
Steven Epstein (1996). Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Brian Wynne (1992). "Misunderstood Misunderstanding: Social Identities and Public Uptake of Science." Public Understanding of Science.1: 281-304.
Grove-White, Robin & Macnaghten, Phil & Mayer, Sue & Wynne, Brian. (1997). Uncertain World: Genetically Modified Organisms, Food and Public Opinion in Britain. A report by the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change in association with Unilever, and with help from the Green Alliance and a variety of other environmental and consumer non-governmental organisations (NGOs)