Neuroscience of race and the production of biological citizens

• In Event: Collating Publics In Collections Of Human Biological Material And Data 2

Abstract

Increasingly, neuroscientists are investigating how the brain processes and perceives racial difference, and the specific neural mechanism that underpin racial behavior and attitudes using novel imaging technologies. In an attempt to eschew the historical associations between the brain (and mind) sciences and scientific racism, these researchers stress that neurobiological studies of race do not reinforce a biological inscription of race, but instead capture how our brains process the socially constructed nature of race. In this paper, we investigate the biopolitical significance, challenges, and hopes imbued through the neuroscience of race. We are especially interested in the way race is defined and operationalized in neurobiological research that focuses on the neural correlates of race recognition and categorization, i.e. how we realize race via the brain. Moreover, we will provide a first of its kind analysis of the relationships between the neuroscience of race and the much more studied genomics of race. How does the neuroscience of race differ, substantiate, or challenge the taxonomic claims and material consequences made through the genetics of race? We contend that neuroscientific appraisals of race may be equally problematic as genetic understandings, and maybe even more challenging to discern, given their perceived biosocial standpoint that seemingly helps immunize the science against standard critiques of scientific racism and biological determinism. Overall, this paper evaluates the neuroscience of race as a sociotechnical imaginary. Researchers have imagined the findings from this science will be used to mend future racial relations. We assess the possibilities and consequences of this sociotechnical imaginary to help create a new kind of democratic subject—a (neuro)biological citizens, in which individuals will be ask to use neurobiological understandings to overcome and reshape their misperceptions about race.

Author

• Torsten H Voigt, RWTH Aachen University