The Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (under the umbrella of WISER) and the Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (UCHRI) joined forces to organize a two-week Workshop on Archives of the Non-Racial which took place in South Africa from June 29 to July 11, 2014.
TIME 17;41
DNAtribes is one of many genetic ancestry testing companies engaged in a kind of objectification of population difference they say that quote instead of relying on socially constructed racial or ethnic divisions implying these are of lesser value DNA tribes defines world regions using objective mathematical criteria this as it turns out is a proprietary statistical method that's applied to over 950 individual population samples around the world to identify groups of populations with shared genetic characteristics now what I want you to note is the binary these tribes are statistically that is scientifically not socially constructed as if statistics were not itself fundamentally a social practice too often the humanity behind quantitative data are not simply lost in the translation process but purposely scrubbed to express objectivity so that humanistic inquiry is this kind of excavation process slowly painstakingly reassembling the multiple subjectivity x' buried beneath the putative lee objective symbols so that let's continue digging thinking briefly now about the role of language play how it plays in fabricating a biological imaginary that can be more or less racialized as a reservoir of symbols and codes and stories and metaphors about the world a field like genetics can
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From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen social inequity.
Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, has the potential to hide, speed up, and deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era. Presenting the concept of the “New Jim Code,” she shows how a range of discriminatory designs encode inequity by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies; by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions; or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Moreover, she makes a compelling case for race itself as a kind of technology, designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice in the architecture of everyday life.
This illuminating guide provides conceptual tools for decoding tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold but also the ones we ourselves manufacture.
If you adopt this book for classroom use in the 2019-2020 academic year, the author would be pleased to arrange to Skype to a session of your class. If interested, enter your details in this sign-up sheet: https://buff.ly/2wJsvZr
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