Mestizo Genomics ― Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America

Based on ethnographic research in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the contributors to Mestizo Genomics explore how the concepts of race, ethnicity, nation, and gender enter into and are affected by genomic research. In Latin America, national identities are often based on ideas about mestizaje (race mixture), rather than racial division. Since mestizaje is said to involve relations between European men and indigenous or African women, gender is a key factor in Latin American genomics and the analyses in this book. Also important are links between contemporary genomics and recent moves toward official multiculturalism in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. One of the first studies of its kind, Mestizo Genomics sheds new light on the interrelations between 'race,' identity, and genomics in Latin America.

Contributors. Adriana Diaz del Castillo H., Roosbelinda Cardenas, Vivette Garcia Deister, Verlan Valle Gaspar Neto, Michael Kent, Carlos Lopez Beltran, Maria Fernanda Olarte Sierra, Eduardo Restrepo, Mariana Rios Sandoval, Ernesto Schwartz-Marin, Ricardo Ventura Santos, Peter Wade

Peter Wade is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester.

Carlos Lopez Beltran is a historian of science and senior researcher in the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosoficas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Eduardo Restrepo is a social anthropologist working in the Department of Cultural Studies at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota.

Ricardo Ventura Santos is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the National School of Public Health of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro and Associate Professor of Anthropology with the National Museum at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.