Date:
Location:
"Accidents of Geography: Creating Genetic Cartographies of the Middle East"
Speaker:
Elise K. Burton, PhD Candidate, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.
Co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University.
Contact:
Shana Rabinowich Ashar
shana_ashar@hks.harvard.edu
Chair:
Sheila Jasanoff, Faculty Associate. Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School.
Lunch is provided if you RSVP via our online form by Thursday of the week before the event.
Abstract:
During the 1980s, mitochondrial DNA sequencing techniques prompted the emergence of phylogeography, a specialized field of biogeography dedicated to investigating the evolutionary processes responsible for the present-day geographical distribution of genes. The methods and approaches of phylogeography have dramatically transformed scientific and popular ideas about where modern humans first evolved and how they spread across the globe in a series of historical “diasporas.” In this final chapter of my dissertation, I ask: how do contemporary nation-states figure into the construction of these universalizing geographies of human evolution and migration? To address this question, I investigate the engagement of Iranian, Turkish, and Israeli geneticists and research subjects in human phylogeography research over the past three decades, focusing on the use of migration maps and genetic tree diagrams to challenge or reinforce national historical narratives. With reference to major political developments, I examine how the practices and interpretations of phylogeography conceptualize the Middle East’s physical space as both a historical “crossroads” of human migration and the birthplace of distinct civilizations and gene sequences, alternately blurring and sharpening the boundaries between Europe and Asia. Bio: Elise K. Burton is a PhD candidate in the joint program for History and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 2010 with a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and Integrative Biology (specializing in evolutionary genetics). Holding wide-ranging interests in the intellectual and cultural history of ethnicity, nationalism, and the biological sciences in the Middle East and beyond, she has published on the teaching of evolution in Middle Eastern education systems and on Israeli cultural politics. Her dissertation, "Genetic Nationalism: Scientific Communities and Ethnic Mythmaking in the Middle East," analyzes the historical development of human genetics research in the region from World War I to the present, with a comparative emphasis on Iran, Turkey, and Israel.
