Committee:
Manuel Castells (chair)
Marita Sturken, George Sanchez

Dissertation Title:
The Informationalization of Race: Communication Technologies and Genomics in theInformation Age

ABSTRACT:

Scientific research into the relationship between race and biology has recently been re-invigorated by advances in human genomics. The findings from the HapMap project have been promised to help in battling common diseases, such as cancer. However, this development also opens the door to old biological conceptions of race. This paper argues that the emerging convergence between biomedicine and technology profoundly impacts the way scientists create knowledge and is part of a new mechanism of racialization. This trend is not unique to racial science, however, but can be observed across a number of social institutions including law enforcement and marketing. Racial knowledge is being constructed from seemingly neutral and unrelated pieces of information, which are collected, sorted, and analyzed through two key technologies: databases and the Internet. ICTs are not simply functional parts of racial science, but play a constitutive role in what can be known about human groups. As a mode of representation, a structuring device, and as a biological category, race is undergoing a significant transformation in the digital age. I refer to this new articulation of race and technology as the informationalization of race.