Racial evolution in the phylogenetic grid of intelligibility
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Abstract
Phylogenetics produces treelike depictions of human evolutionary history that some interpret as evidence for the biological reality of discrete human races. The colonial history and purpose of phylogenetic methods are reflected in the efficacy with which they infer the evolutionary divergence of races. Contemporary phylogenetics operates through a grid of intelligibility at the confluence of several bioinformatic tools such as genetic cluster analysis, evolutionary dendrograms, island model sampling, and molecular clocks. Since the methods of using these tools are highly flexible, they can be calibrated to align with racial imaginaries and bring putative ancestral populations into focus. The human genome is thereby interpreted as a natural archive of racial evolution. In the process, the colonial history of race is obscured behind a mythical, precolonial time of relatively unadmixed racial origins. By examining the sociogenesis of racial phylogenetics, this article demonstrates the role of the phylogenetic archive in the ongoing biologization of race and the concomitant colonization of time.
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