What is race? And how does it figure in different scientific practices? To answer these questions, I suggest that we need to know race differently. Rather than defining race or looking for one conclusive answer to what it is, I propose methods that are open-ended, that allow us to follow race around, while remaining curious as to what it is. I suggest that we pursue generous methods. Drawing on empirical examples of forensic identification technologies, I argue that the slipperiness of race-the way race and its politics inexorably shift and change-cannot be fully grasped as an 'object multiple'. Race, I show, is not race: The same word refers to different phenomena. To grasp this, I introduce the notion of the affinity concept. Drawing on the history of race, along with contemporary work in forensic genetics, the affinity concept helps us articulate how race indexes three different scientific realities: race as object, race as method, and race as theory. These three different, yet interconnected realities, contribute to race's slipperiness as well as its virulence.

中文翻译：

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对种族的好奇：实践中的慷慨方法和认识模式。


什么是种族？它在不同的科学实践中有何体现？为了回答这些问题，我建议我们需要以不同的方式了解种族。我提出了开放式的方法，让我们能够跟踪种族，同时对种族是什么保持好奇，而不是定义种族或寻找种族的结论性答案。我建议我们追求慷慨的方法。借鉴法医鉴定技术的经验例子，我认为种族的不确定性——种族及其政治不可避免地转变和变化的方式——不能被完全理解为“对象多重”。我表明，种族不是种族：同一个词指的是不同的现象。为了理解这一点，我引入了亲和力概念。利用种族的历史以及当代法医遗传学的研究，亲和力概念帮助我们阐明种族如何索引三种不同的科学现实：种族作为对象、种族作为方法和种族作为理论。这三个不同但又相互关联的现实，导致了种族的不稳定和恶毒。