Paper short abstract:

The paper examines how genetic data about population diversity in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil circulate in public spaces beyond the scientific community (journals, labs) and how different sectors of the public engage with this information and react to it. Do ideas about diversity become “geneticised”?

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents some results from a collective project on the circulation of genomic data about population diversity in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. These data address issues of ethnic and racial difference, mixedness, the history of race-sex relationships and the characteristics of national populations. The paper examines how these data circulate in public spaces beyond the scientific community (journals, labs) and how different sectors of the public engage with this information and react to it. I will explore the question of to what extent a process of "geneticisation" is taking place and whether popular ideas about cultural and racial diversity in the nation (and its relation to health and social policy) are being "biologised" by the circulation of genetic data and whether genetics is undermining popular conceptions of race. This has implications for changing ideas about race, racism and anti-racism.