[Sci-tech-public] Call for Papers: The Business of Race and Science

[Debbie Meinbresse]

Call for Papers: The Business of Race and Science

Conference: March 30-31, 2007
Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Submission Deadline: October 15th, 2006

Recent advances in genetics have renewed interest in sciences and 
technologies of race.  Although humans may share 99.9% of their 
genes, there may be much that is interesting, even profitable, in the 
remaining 0.1%.  This has fueled rapidly growing interest in a range 
of products that claim to take advantage of differences between human 
populations.  Companies now market race-specific medications and 
vitamins, and other racial therapeutics are in development. Competing 
laboratories offer genetic analyses of race and ancestry.  Racial 
science has infiltrated our discussions of topics as wide-ranging as 
cosmetics and forensics, while parallel developments commercialize 
differences between strains of plants and animals.  Increasing 
funding for racial analyses from governments, corporations, and 
consumers will only accelerate this process.

Are these ventures appropriate uses of new understandings of 
race?  Will this commodification of racial science help or harm the 
targeted populations and society at large?  Who speaks for 
populations in endorsing or sanctioning the commercialization of 
racial difference?  How will the controversies play out in different 
countries and contexts?  How will attending to the business of racial 
science help understand the science itself and clarify its role in 
our world?  This conference invites papers from many disciplines -- 
medicine, pharmacology, history, anthropology, sociology, STS, 
genetics, business, ethics, law, and others -- to discuss the promise 
and pitfalls of the new business of race and science.

Abstracts (300 words or less) should be submitted by October 15th to:

Gregory Dorr, Ph.D.
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue E51-185
Cambridge, MA 02139
gdorr at mit.edu (email submissions are encouraged)


Debbie Meinbresse
STS Program, MIT
617-452-2390
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