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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">We would appreciate your
assistance in distributing this call for papers to your colleagues.
We apologize for any cross postings you might receive. <br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=4><b>Call for Papers:
What’s the Use of Race?</b></font><br><br>
<font size=4><b>Conference: April 25-26, 2008<br>
Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and
Medicine<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts<br><br>
Submission Deadline: October 15th, 2007</b></font><br><br>
Despite long-standing critiques of the concept of race from <br>
biologists, anthropologists, and social scientists, race continues
to <br>
thrive as a category of analysis among scholars, pundits, and the
<br>
conventional wisdom. State and federal institutions routinely
<br>
collect data about race and ethnicity. The National Institutes
of <br>
Health requests that researchers include racially and ethnically
<br>
diverse populations in their studies. Journals in fields as
diverse <br>
as genetics, public health, and sociology report data on race and
<br>
ethnicity and use these variables as significant factors in their
<br>
analyses. This pursuit of race has produced overwhelming
<br>
documentation of racial disparities, from birth rates to education,
<br>
income, crime, punishment, disease, medical treatment, and life
<br>
expectancy. While many scholars believe that research must
consider <br>
race if it is to understand fully human biology and experience,
<br>
critics argue that race is a hollow and misleading concept that
leads <br>
to invidious distinctions. While advocates of social justice
argue <br>
that racial disparities must be documented before they can be <br>
alleviated, our vast knowledge of disparities has not yet led to
<br>
decisive social or political action against them.<br><br>
What should be done? Should the concept of race be invoked to
<br>
further the goals of science or social justice? Do racial and
ethnic <br>
distinctions produce natural categories for scholarly or political
<br>
analysis? Do the benefits of including diverse populations in
<br>
research outweigh the potential harm caused by reifying racial and
<br>
ethnic distinctions? Will efforts to improve the precision of
these <br>
categories with subtler distinctions based on ancestry or genetic
<br>
markers increase the utility of the resulting data? What role
do <br>
funding agencies (whether governmental or philanthropic) and
journal <br>
editors have as gatekeepers for the appropriate use of racial and
<br>
ethnic categories? What hopes and conflicts are embedded in
analyses <br>
of race as a scientific, medical or social category? This
conference <br>
invites papers from any discipline -- medicine, history, <br>
anthropology, epidemiology, STS, genetics, sociology, law, ethics,
<br>
and others -- that consider these debates about the uses of race.
We <br>
hope to describe and explore the competing interests that have made
<br>
studies of race simultaneously feared and desired.<br><br>
Abstracts (300 words or less) should be submitted by October 15th
to:<br><br>
David S. Jones, M.D., Ph.D.<br>
77 Massachusetts Avenue E51-290<br>
Cambridge, MA 02139<br>
dsjones@mit.edu (email submissions preferred)<br><br>
Additional information at
web.mit.edu/csd</blockquote></blockquote></body>
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