This article examines how race and ancestry are taken up in gene-environment interaction (GEI) research on complex diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Using 54 in-depth interviews of 33 scientists and over 200 hours of observation at scientific conferences, we explore how GEI researchers use and interpret race, ethnicity, and ancestry in their work. We find that the use of self-identified race and ethnicity (SIRE) exists alongside ancestry informative markers (AIMs) to ascertain genetic ancestry. Our participants assess the utility of these two techniques in relative terms, downplaying the accuracy and value of SIRE compared to the precision and necessity of AIMs. In doing so, we argue that post-genomic scientists seeking to understand the interactions of genetic and environmental disease determinants actually undermine their ability to do so by valorizing precise characterizations of individuals’ genetic ancestry over measurement of the social processes and relations that differentiate social groups.
BlissCatherine. 2011. “Racial Taxonomy in Genomics.” Social Science & Medicine73(7):1019–27.
4.
BlissCatherine. 2012. Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
5.
BowkerGeoffrey C.StarSusan Leigh. 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
6.
BraunLundyHammondsEvelynn. 2008. “Race, Population, and Genomics: Africa as Laboratory.” Social Science & Medicine67(10):1580–88.
7.
BrodkinKaren. 1999. How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
8.
CampbellMary E.RogalinChristabel L.2006. “Categorical Imperatives: The Interaction of Latino and Racial Identification.” Social Science Quarterly87(5):1030–52.
9.
Cavalli-SforzaL. LucaBodmer.Walter [1974]1999. The Genetics of Human Populations. New York: Dober Publications.
10.
CollinsFrancis S.GreenEric D.GuttmacherAlan E.GuyerMark S.on behalf of the US NHGRI. 2003. “A Vision for the Future of Genomics Research: A Blueprint for the Genomic Era.” Nature422(6934):835–47.
11.
DobzhanskyTheodosius. 1963. “A Debateable Account of the Origin of Races.” Scientific American208:169–72.
EpsteinSteven. 2007. Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
14.
FrankReanneAkreshIlana RedstoneLuBo. 2010. “Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order: How and Where Do They Fit In?” American Sociological Review75(3):378–401.
15.
FujimuraJoan H.RajagopalanRamya. 2011. “Different Differences: The Use of ‘Genetic Ancestry’ versus Race in Biomedical Human Genetic Research.” Social Studies of Science41(1):5–30.
16.
FullwileyDuana. 2007. “The Molecularization of Race: Institutionalizing Human Difference in Pharmaco-genetics Practice.” Science as Culture16(1):1–30.
17.
FullwileyDuana. 2008. “The Biologistical Construction of Race: ‘Admixture’ Technology and the New Genetic Medicine.” Social Studies of Science38(5): 695–735.
18.
FullwileyDuana. 2011. The Enculturated Gene: Sickle Cell Health Politics and Biological Difference in West Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
19.
GannettLisa. 2001. “Racism and Human Genome Diversity Research: The Ethical Limits of ‘Population Thinking.’”Philosophy of Science68(suppl 3):S479–92.
20.
GoldsteinDavid B.2009. “Common Genetic Variation and Human Traits.” New England Journal of Medicine360(17):1696–98.
21.
HardyJohnSingletonAndrew. 2009. “Genomewide Association Studies and Human Disease.” New England Journal of Medicine360(17):1759–68.
22.
HarrisDavid R.SimsJeremiah Joseph. 2002. “Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race.” American Sociological Review67(4):614–27.
23.
HirschhornJoel N.2009. “Genomewide Association Studies—Illuminating Biologic Pathways.” New England Journal of Medicine360(17):1699–701.
24.
MarthaLamplandStarSusan Leigh (eds.). 2009. Standards and Their Stories: How Quantifying, Classifying, and Formalizing Practices Shape Everyday Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
25.
LeeJenniferBeanFrank D.2004. “America’s Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification.” Annual Review of Sociology30:221–42.
26.
LeeSandra Soo-Jin. 2005. “Racializing Drug Design: Implications of Pharmacogenomics for Health Disparities.” American Journal of Public Health95(12): 2133–38.
27.
LeeSandra Soo-Jin. 2006. “Biobanks of a ‘Racial Kind’: Mining for Difference in the New Genetics.” Patterns of Prejudice40(4-5):443–60.
28.
LeeSandra Soo-Jin. 2008. “Racial Realism and the Discourse of Responsibility for Health Disparities in a Genomic Age.” Pp. 342–58 in Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age, edited by KoenigB. A.LeeS. S.-J.RichardsonS. S.New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
29.
LeeSandra Soo-Jin. 2013. “Race, Risk, and Recreation in Personal Genomics: The Limits of Play.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly27(4):550–69.
30.
LeeSandra Soo-JinMountainJoannaKoenigBarbaraAltmanRussBrownMelissaCamarilloAlbertCavalli-SforzaLucaChoMildredEberhardtJenniferFeldmanMarcusFordRichardGreelyHenryKingRoyMarkusHazelSatzDebraSnippMatthewSteeleClaudeUnderhillPeter. 2008. “The Ethics of Characterizing Difference: Guiding Principles on Using Racial Categories in Human Genetics.” Genome Biology9(7):404.
31.
LewontinRichard. 1972. “The Apportionment of Human Diversity.” Evolutionary Biology6:381–98.
32.
ManolioTeriBailey-WilsonJoan E.CollinsFrancis S.2006. “Genes, Environment and the Value of Prospective Cohort Studies.” Nature Reviews Genetics7(10):812–20.
33.
MichaelsWalter Benn. 2000. “Political Science Fictions.” New Literary History31:649–64.
34.
MontoyaMichael. 2007. “Bioethnic Conscription: Genes, Race, and Mexicana/o Ethnicity in Diabetes Research.” Cultural Anthropology22(1):94–128.
35.
MontoyaMichael. 2011. Making the Mexican Diabetic: Race, Science, and the Genetics of Inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
36.
MurphyMichelle. 2012. Seizing the Means of Reproduc-tion: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
37.
ReardonJenny. 2005. Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
38.
ReardonJenny. 2009. “Finding Oprah’s Roots, Losing the World: Beyond the Liberal Anti-racist Genome.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science, Washington, DC.
39.
ShimJanet K.DarlingKatherine WeatherfordLappeMartine D.ThomsonL.KatherineLeeSandra Soo-JinHiattRobert A.AckermanSara L.2014. “Homogeneity and Heterogeneity as Situational Properties: Producing—and Moving Beyond?—Race in Post-genomic Science.” Social Studies of Science44(4):579–99.
40.
TimmermansStefanBergMarc. 2003. The Gold Standard: The Challenge of Evidence-based Medicine. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
41.
TimmermansStefanEpsteinSteven. 2010. “A World of Standards but Not a Standard World: Toward a Sociology of Standards and Standardization.” Annual Review of Sociology36:69–89.
42.
VisscherPeter MBrownMatthew AMcCarthyMark IYangJian. 2012. “Five Years of GWAS Discovery.” American Journal of Human Genetics90(1):7–24.
43.
WhitmarshIan. 2008. Biomedical Ambiguity: Race, Asthma, and the Contested Meaning of Genetic Research in the Caribbean. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
