In studying race and racialization, we do not reduce race to biological markers or to discursive fiction. Instead, we study race as a material semiotic relation, shaped and made to matter through everyday practices in science and society.

As anthropologists, race is part and parcel of our disciplinary legacy. The crucial context here is the colonial project, including in science, and the multiple and relational histories of race therein. After decades of taboo following the Second World War, race is making a comeback in the biomedical sciences, forensics, genetics and physical anthropology, where we examine the various guises it takes. A main focus is on the consequences of race being enacted in particular ways within science, law enforcement and broader society. We are also interested in the technologies used in scientific and everyday practices, and how they rely on and reinforce racialized ways of understanding differences in post-colonial contexts in Europe and beyond.

Affilliated researchers