What about race?

Text Exploration

In this text, the authors argue that race is constructed, continually, by the things we do to study it and the things we do “with it.” Through a lens of actor network theory, they describe race as intertwined with objects that study it and the objects it informs, and so a study of race has materiality.

The authors begin their discussion by entering into the network through a computer-generated image of a person; the image is claimed to have been generated entirely through the use of DNA. The authors call this false: DNA has been mapped to various stereotypical aspects of race, and these mappings also participate in the network in which the image exists. This is an argument that race is not talked into existence; it is “done” through and with all of the other elements in the network.

What’s more, it is done through all of the elements not in the network, and as the network is always changing, the idea of race has a “ghostly” quality to it. They illustrate the changing quality by showing the same computer-generated image presented later, when telemetry has become more nuanced and is able to describe the DNA in more detail. The image itself has not changed, and the DNA has not changed, but the nuance of examination has and so has the presentation of the image, which is now contextualized as a wanted poster for a crime.

The authors point out the value of this way of thinking, as it serves to provide for and frame a scholarly discussion. However, they argue that actor network theory exists as a moment in time and doesn’t incorporate the historical context of each item in the network (and again, those items excluded from it.) This can be addressed by thinking about the objects in the network as having a memory—meaning is folded into them, or, as the authors point out, “objects, then, can be conceived of as folds.”

The authors conclude that actor network theory is an effect way to study something as large, fleeting and impactful as race, as the theory makes room for social construction of ideas, but contextualized in the actual tools used to make them.