‘We Are All the Same, We All Are<i>Mestizos</i>’: Imagined Populations and Nations in Genetics Research in Colombia

Sierra, María Fernanda Olarte; Hernandez, Adriana Diaz del Castillo

doi:10.1080/09505431.2013.838214

Cited by 21 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus, the idea of mestizaje and mestizo became central to the Mexican national ideology (Loveman, 2014;Olarte Sierra and Díaz del Castillo, 2014;Wade, 2017;Wade et al, 2014). Various intellectuals recovered this myth during the twentieth century and created the idea of a mestizo population.…”

Section: Mestizajementioning

confidence: 99%

Policing in Cryptoracial Societies: The Case of Mexico

Delgado

2023

PoLAR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2013, the Official Journal of the Federation of Mexico listed the key challenges facing Mexico's judicial institutions: a lack of public trust due to widespread corruption and systematic failure to prosecute and convict criminals (DOF, 2014). A plan to address these issues ensued. Written by the National Conference on the Administration and Enforcement of Justice, this plan consisted of institutional reforms to be carried out by the Mexican judiciary as well as the adoption of new technologies to standardize forensic practices by the police department. Central to the new measures was the proposed consolidation of national biometric databases; chiefly, the automated biometric identification system (ABIS, for fingerprints), the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), and Caramex, otherwise known as La Cara del Mexicano (the Face of the Mexican), a photographic database of faces (see Gobierno de la República, 2015: Serrano et al. 1999). The general objective was to build a new public security system strengthened by technology with the hope that these new databases would help address the inability of the police to catch criminals at both local and federal levels. However, despite these efforts, international reports such as the Global Impunity Index 2020 suggest that these strategies, implemented to improve the judicial system, had little effect (LeCleroq Ortega and Rodríguez Sánchez Lara, 2020, 9-10).In this article, I argue that the failure to improve public security through the use of new technologies should come as no surprise; that is, despite technological developments, realization of justice in Mexico will only be achieved when attention is paid to everyday discriminatory practices by the police-and society in general-and in particular to the role of "race" within those discriminatory practices. Furthermore, it remains unclear how these technologies might themselves contribute to creating or reshaping how race operates in what I call a cryptoracial society-a society where race is absent from official demographic information, resulting in racial ideas being hidden behind other explanations of discrimination, such as class. 1 I argue that in cryptoracial societies, which include other Latin American, European, and some Middle Eastern and Asian societies, the relevance of race and racism in talking about and understanding difference remains hidden, despite race's centrality. In such contexts, new technologies (for example, CODIS, ABIS, or Caramex) can then further obscure the role of race, particularly in policing practices, by introducing a false sense of objectivity.

show abstract

Section: Mestizajementioning

confidence: 99%

Policing in Cryptoracial Societies: The Case of Mexico

Delgado

2023

PoLAR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This specific idea of mestizo is a category of high significance in other Latin American countries as well (Loveman 2014; Olarte Sierra and Díaz del Castillo 2014; Wade 2017; Wade et al. 2014a).…”

Section: Caramex and The Mestizo Facementioning

confidence: 99%

The Face of the Mexican: Race, Nation, and Criminal Identification in Mexico

Delgado

2020

American Anthropologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Various scientific techniques are used worldwide in contemporary criminal identification. Caramex, called the “Face of the Mexican,” is a face‐recall system for criminal identification specifically developed for the Mexican population. It is a photographic database composed of Mexican facial traits to generate composite sketches. In this article, I examine Caramex and show that it works according to specific ideas of nation, mixture (mestizaje), and race (mestizo). In contrast to racial ideologies in which purity is the assumed and desired condition of races, Caramex highlights hybridity. This specific framework—drawing on what I call “Mexicanness”—guides the construction of the database and thus the production of portraits. The analysis historically situates the development of Caramex and provides insights into the daily use of this technology. It shows that Caramex not only reproduces old views of nation and race but also generates new ideas on these issues, as users can alter the photographic database and contest the ideas that shaped the technology. Thus, more generally, this case shows how technologies of identification incorporate and construct ideas of nationhood and human variation in Latin America. [face‐recall system, mestizo, race, Caramex, Mexicanness, Mexico]

show abstract

“…In Colombia, genetic research tends to highlight regional differences within the nation, linking them to racial diversity in a way that meshes with common narratives about Colombia as a country of distinctive regions and which is subject to (often violent) fragmentation ( Olarte Sierra and Díaz del Castillo Hernández, 2013 ). One geneticist has published popular science books, relating genetic data to issues of nation, race and mestizaje ( Yunis Turbay, 2009 ).…”

Section: Latin Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomic research, publics and experts in Latin America: Nation, race and body

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics to transfigure and transform existing ways of thinking about human diversity are often overstated. If a range of social contexts are examined, the effects are uneven. Our data show that genomic knowledge can unsettle and reinforce ideas of nation and race; it can be both banal and highly politicized. In this introduction, we outline concepts of genetic knowledge in society; theories of genetics, nation and race; approaches to public understandings of science; and the Latin American contexts of transnational ideas of nation and race.

show abstract

‘We Are All the Same, We All AreMestizos’: Imagined Populations and Nations in Genetics Research in Colombia

Cited by 21 publications

References 24 publications

Policing in Cryptoracial Societies: The Case of Mexico

Policing in Cryptoracial Societies: The Case of Mexico

The Face of the Mexican: Race, Nation, and Criminal Identification in Mexico

Genomic research, publics and experts in Latin America: Nation, race and body

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About