Abstract
Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) encompasses a set of technologies aimed at predicting phenotypic characteristics from genotypes. Advocates of FDP present it as the future of forensics, with an ultimate goal of producing complete, individualised facial composites based on DNA. With a focus on individuals and promised advances in technology comes the assumption that modern methods are steadily moving away from racial science. Yet in the quantification of physical differences, FDP builds upon some nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific practices that measured and categorised human variation in terms of race. In this article I complicate the linear temporal approach to scientific progress by building on the notion of the folded object. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in various genetic laboratories, I show how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century anthropological measuring and data-collection practices and statistical averaging techniques are folded into the ordering of measurements of skin color data taken with a spectrophotometer, the analysis of facial shape based on computational landmarks and the collection of iris photographs. Attending to the historicity of FDP facial renderings, I bring into focus how race comes about as a consequence of temporal folds.
Highlights
Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) encompasses a set of technologies aimed at predicting phenotypic characteristics from genotypes
In his 1951 paper, Washburn had pointed to a similar shift. He emphasised that physical anthropology should move away from racial science and, taking inspiration from human genetics, should shift its focus towards populations (Washburn, 1951; see Haraway, 1988; Marks, 1995; Radin, 2013: 487)
In the development of FDP technologies, a progressive, linear temporality and the steady move away from race cannot adequately capture the temporal complexities of this research. Even though these technologies may be progressing in terms of level of detail, storage capacity and computing time, physical anthropological and statistical histories are simultaneously folded into FDP practices in intricate ways, entangling race in novel configurations
Summary
Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) encompasses a set of technologies aimed at predicting phenotypic characteristics from genotypes. I demonstrate what is ‘folded in, folded away, or unfolded’ (Bauer, 2015: 156) in three FDP research practices revolving around the collection, ordering and analysis of data on human biological variation, pointing out how race becomes part of these practices.
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