genetic natureculture anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide - alan goodman

[...]... geneticists, sociologists, and historians, examine genetics at the intersection between nature and culture The contributors share the conviction that genetic practice and discourses about genetics are fertile material–symbolic terrain for considering key questions such as the relationships between science and society and, within the academy, between the sciences and the humanities The book has its origin... cultures” the sciences and the humanities—made this book possible The symposium took shape in the shadow of the so-called science wars, in which science studies was drawn into a public and rancorous manifestation of the ideological division between interpretive and scientific perspectives We saw the symposium as an opportunity to transcend the polarities, both preface and acknowledgments xvii topical and theoretical,... religion, and drunkenness It produced laughter in some members of the audience, which included local residents, and bewilderment in most of us Some of us found the skit and the costumes offensive and left Others, unaware of their colleagues’ departures, joined the dancing around the fire at the end of the show Coincidentally, we were scheduled to discuss race, genetics, and anthropology the next day The following... disordered page numbers, endnotes, and references, and then with no displeasure passed along these and other tasks to the cordial professionals Laura Pasquale and Marian Olivas at the University of California Press Deborah Heath and Alan Goodman extend our love and appreciation to our coeditor, the science historian M Susan Lindee, for her wit, acumen, and editorial sharpshooting and for agreeing to join our... in 1959 as the “two cultures”2 the apparently incompatible humanistic and scientific ways of understanding the world Anthropology as a discipline has been deeply affected by the imperfect fit between technical and cultural explanations It is a field that takes seriously both nature and culture, and both scientific and humanistic analyses And the techniques and practices of the new genetics, as they have... some cases, they are places deeply imbricated in the history of anthropology, such as the study of indigenous populations and the identification of a “pure line” in human groups In other cases they are novel sites reflecting shifts in the landscape of the field, including the materiality of the “bodies that matter” (Butler 1993) These corporeal encounters involve Little People or the Amish, Icelanders or... confront the interventions of geneticists They also involve the genomes of the dog, the cloned sheep, and the chimpanzee, and the many ways that other species are implicated in contemporary genomics We are interested in the stories told about such sites, and in the storytelling art in all its manifestations In part 2, titled “Culture/Nature,” we consider the intersections of biosociality, complexity, and. .. kinship and identity, race and culture, history and the human future What stories do genes tell? And what stories do we tell about genes and, in so doing, about others and ourselves, science and society, and nature and culture? Anthropologists have long been critical players in constructing the nar- introduction 17 ratives that define culture Making the world, building narratives, is a craft, and we... anthropologists must show themselves to be fully competent in the biological component of their subject matter Many of the dangers I have alluded to derive from the growing separation of the subfields of (American) anthropology during the last decades of the century Ironically, at the same time that the genetics revolution revealed the complementarity of the different fields, we saw institutional and intellectual... the skit and varying responses to it became a way to explore the specificity of racialized meanings and experiences Brazilian racial politics made interpreting the blackface difficult The dancers themselves were people of color, at least by European and North American stan- 4 lindee, goodman, and heath dards They were also lower-level employees in the service economy of a less than affluent region And . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" Genetic Nature/Culture Genetic Nature/Culture Anthropology and Science beyond the Two-Culture Divide EDITED BY Alan H. Goodman, Deborah Heath, and M. Susan Lindee UNIVERSITY. such as the relationships between science and society and, within the academy, between the sciences and the humanities. The book has its origin in papers presented at the Wenner-Gren Interna- tional. Data Genetic nature/culture : anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide / edited by Alan H. Goodman, Deborah Heath, and M. Susan Lindee. 7p.cm. Papers presented at a Wenner-Gren Foundation international