Amade M’charek is Professor Anthropology of Science at the department of Anthropology of the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests are in forensics, forensic anthropology and race. She is the PI of the project Dutchness in Genes and Genealogy, a project examining how Dutchness is enacted in collaborations between population geneticists, archaeologists and genealogists. M’charek is also the PI of the project Sexuality & Diversity in the Making. She is the founding chair of the European Network for the Social Studies of Forensics (EUnetSSF) and the convenor of the seminar series  Ir/relevance of Race in Science and Society. Her most recent research is on face making and race making in forensic identification, for which she received a five-year ERC consolidator grant in December 2013.

Main Research Interests

Race

• Race and forensic identification
• Race and genetics
• Race and physical anthropology
• Race and archeology 

 Diversity

• Genetic diversity and population genetic
• Diversity in biomedical practice (Diabetes, Sickle cell disease)
• Diversity, sexuality and gender

Technology

• Technologies and genetics
• Technologies and forensic identification
• Medical technologies
• Every day medical technologies

Theory and Method

• Ethnography
• Anthropology of science and technology
• Material semiotics
• Science and technology studies
• Postcolonial science studies

PhD supervision

Ongoing             

Martine de Rooij: “Ethnographies of the contemporary: doing time and space with archaeogenetics” 

Willemijn Krebbexk: FWOS project on “Sexualities and Diversities in the Making”

Iris Berends: “Risk Assessment and Neurosciences in the Pre-trial Report Setting  for Juveniles"

Eline van Haastrecht: “Engaging Biodiversity. Governing Science and Nature in Marine Protected Areas”

Maria Elena Planas: “Positioning Ethnicity/”Race”: Discrimination, Identity and Psychological Distress in Lima, Peru”

Francisca Gromme: “Governing Surveillance Technology” 

Completed

Tjerk-Jan Schuitmaker: “Hampering of Success of New Care Practices: Unraveling Persistent Problems in the Dutch Health Care System" (2013; At present, Postdoc fellow, VU University Amsterdam)

Victor Toom: “A DNA Profile’s Capacity of Rights: On the Interference between Science and the Law in Forensic DNA Practice in the Netherlands" (2010; At present, Fellow, Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science (NUCFS)

Maria Fernanda Olarte Sierra: “Achieving the Desirable Nation: Abortion and Parental Tests in Colombia: the case of Amniocentesis” (2010; At present, Assistant professor, Universidad Los Andes, Colombia)  

Externally Funded Research Projects

2014. European Research Council Consolidator Grant:

"Race Matter: On the Absent Presence of Race in Forensic Identification" (RaceFaceID)

In many European countries race is a taboo subject. Due to colonialism and WWII, studying race is delegated to the realm of ‘bad science’ or declared irrelevant all together. Yet, current biomedicine and forensic practices are co-shaped by techniques that depend on and explore differences between human populations. In the process, these techniques reintroduce and shape race in both science and society. But this is not done upfront. In Europe race has become an absent presence, an object that pops up, e.g. in discourse, to then hide in seemingly unproblematic techniques, e.g in genetic markers. The proposed research seeks to open up for study this double move, in which ‘race’ gets configured but not discussed.

This is an ethnographic study of race in forensic identification, focusing on practices of giving face to unknown individuals. Although the face is generally viewed as the ultimate individual identifier, in practice individuality cannot be achieved without situating an individual in a population (M’charek 2000). Studying race in forensic practice today is highly relevant, since forensics constitutes one of the major domains where science and society interact.

The chief objective of our research is to explore how a) technologies of identification rely on and reiterate racial ways of understanding differences; how b) the version of race enacted in the process changes as knowledge travels across forensic sites; and c) which mechanisms contribute to the absent-presentness of race. We study three different technologies of identifications through in-depth multi-sited ethnographies (Marcus 1995): (1) the frontier science of genetic facial phenotying (e.g. the inference of facial form, hair, skin and iris colour from DNA); (2) the established technologies of craniofacial reconstruction (based on the skull); and (3) facial composite. We therein examine how knowledge travels from forensic laboratories to courtrooms, also from the forensic laboratories to so-called Research and Development sites.

2013. Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Sexualiteit Research Project:

"Sexualities and Diversities in the Making" 

Adolescent sexuality is mostly discussed and researched in relation to risks and dangers- as defined from an adult point of view. This does not yield information about the daily practices, pleasures and problems with regard to sexuality that adolescents experience themselves. Moreover, in societal discussions sexual development, gender equality and adolescents’ attitude towards homosexuality are often seen as problematic, in particular in relation to multicultural diversity. Earlier, mostly quantitative research, reproduces existing stereotypes by defining categories of diversity beforehand, instead of attending to the dynamics of identities.

This pioneering qualitative research project investigates how young people in the Netherlands from different backgrounds enact their sexuality and the way this is affected by and has an effect on the differences and similarities they produce among themselves. It examines how different spaces in which adolescents live their lives, in particular school and social media, limit or enable their possibilities to explore, experience, protect, develop or display their sexuality and sexual identity.

This ethnographic study will contribute with novel insight about

(1) the perspective of young people on their sexuality;

(2) the way particular spaces enable or limit the diversity of sexual identities;

(3) the entwinement of sexuality with diversity and other identities.

These insights will be disseminated to professionals and the public using various media.   

2011 - 2013. Center for Society and the Life Sciences Research Project:

"Genes, Brains and Criminality in Context: Assessment of knowledge development in genomics and neurobiology and the transfer thereof into psychiatric forensic practice"

The Dutch Ministry of Justice wants neurobiological and behavioral genetic knowledge, in addition to social scientific and scientific legal knowledge, to be given a place in research, policy and practice. The ultimate goal is to achieve a science-based practice of prevention, investigation and justice in order to reduce serious crime figures and lower recidivism. (Kogel, 2008) In connection with this, the Dutch Institute for Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology (NIFP) is busy assessing the extent to which new neuropsychological, neurobiological and genetic knowledge and techniques are applicable in forensic diagnostics for the judiciary and the TBS-sector. In keeping with this, the forensic psychiatric observation clinic of the Ministry of Justice, the Pieter Baan Centre (PBC) has started a neuropsychological research project for diagnostic purposes and hopes to start additional behavioral genetic research in the near future (Blok 2010).

An important challenge within this context of forensic diagnostics, is the alignment between questions from legal practice and possibilities from science and technology. This involves the search for connections between new genetic and neurobiological knowledge and insights and policy- and practical questions related to accountability, the risk of recidivism and treatment options. The aim is to develop objectifying techniques, for example, to make a distinction between impulsive- and intentional aggressive disorders in suspects as a means to the end of improving the quality of risk-profiles and risk-management. In the first group of disorders people have less control of their own behavior and aggression than in the latter.

A risk-profile should be meaningful for the individual case under survey. Genetic information might then provide an additional component in the appraisal process, to support other findings. But to be able to think through the consequences of this addition to the legal practice, it is important to first have a clear picture of how the current prognostic risk profiles (non-genetically) are performed and what forensic psychiatrists and psychologists, judges, prosecutors, and lawyers do with and value the findings. Subsequently, the following question should be addressed; how and under what conditions might genetic knowledge and insights be used in two important areas of justice, namely prevention and the judicial process?

A first step here is to identify and clarify experiences and expectations of the forensic psychiatrists and psychologists, and, of judges, prosecutors, and lawyers regarding the application and implications of genetic knowledge in these diverse areas of legal practice. The use of knowledge about genes and the brain will have implications for the judicial process. However, there is much uncertainty about how to proceed and what this knowledge might entail. What can be seen as an opportunity to produce risk profiles and analyses with greater certainty, by e.g. forensic investigators and criminal intelligence units (police) may not be viewed in the same way by judges and lawyers. How, then do the different actors involved assess the consequences of using genetic knowledge and insights in terms of opportunities and/or dilemma’s?

Race Matter: On the Absent Presence of Race in Forensic Identification (RaceFaceID)

In many European countries race is a taboo subject. Due to colonialism and WWII, studying race is delegated to the realm of ‘bad science’ or declared irrelevant all together. Yet, current biomedicine and forensic practices are co-shaped by techniques that depend on and explore differences between human populations. In the process, these techniques reintroduce and shape race in both science and society. But this is not done upfront. In Europe race has become an absent presence, an object that pops up, e.g. in discourse to then hide in seemingly unproblematic techniques, e.g. in genetic markers. The RaceFaceID research project seeks to open up for study this double move, in which ‘race’ gets configured but not discussed.

The RaceFaceID project is an ethnographic study of race in forensic identification, in which the focus is on practices of giving a face to an unknown individual, a suspect or a victim. Although the face is generally viewed as the ultimate individual identifier, in practice individuality cannot be achieved without situating an individual in a population (M’charek 2000). Rather than defining race, we follow the relation between the individual and the population in practice and attend to instances in which this relation is translated, and wherein population comes to stand for race.

The chief objective of the RaceFaceID project is to explore a) how technologies of identification rely on and reiterate racial ways of understanding differences; b) how the version of race enacted in the process changes as knowledge travels across forensic sites; and c) which mechanisms contribute to the absent-presentness of race. We study three different technologies of identifications through in-depth multi-sited ethnographies (Marcus 1995): (1) the frontier science of genetic facial phenotying (e.g. the inference of facial form, hair, skin and iris colour from DNA); (2) the established technologies of craniofacial reconstruction (facial reconstruction based on the skull); and (3) the classical facial composite (either based on sketching or computerised photofit). We therein examine how knowledge travels from forensic laboratories to courtrooms, also from the forensic laboratories to so-called Research and Development sites.

Guiding the RaceFaceID project is the overarching question: How is race enacted in forensic practices? A series of sub-questions will address the answer:

a) How do various technologies of identification in- and outside the laboratory enact race?
b) How do versions of race change as they move between practices?
c) What mechanisms work to make race an absent presence?
d) What concepts are apt to theoretically grasp the name- and shape-changing nature of race? 

The project aims to develop a theoretical and methodological framework for studying race-in-practice. The framework is aimed at advancing our knowledge about the ways race is enacted through and materializes in technologies. It thus aims at advancing our understanding of the materiality of race in practice, not by reducing race to biology or the body, but by tracing ethnographically how race is configured as specific relations between the biological, the social and the technical.

The project also aims to shed light on how the traffic of knowledge between sites implies that race is translated and made relevant in a variety of ways. To date, studies into racial configurations have concentrated on scientific settings (laboratory or clinic) or on sites where the sciences are marginal. This project will move beyond this by following the trajectory along which knowledge and technology move across diverse sites, in and out of the laboratory. It will detail how versions of race are enacted and the socio-technical relations that need to be in place to do that.

Finally, it aims to advance social science by studying race as an absent presence, an object that tends to hide in seemingly unproblematic categories or in the technologies and routines of science. We will not focus on discourses (indeed the word ‘race’ often remains unspoken) but on practices and meticulously examine how race, even if not articulated, is still enacted and embedded in ways of working and in technologies.

Studying race in forensic practice today is highly relevant, since forensics constitutes one of the major domains where science and society interact.

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M'charek, A. (2000). Technologies of population: Forensic DNA testing practices and the making of differences and similarities. Configurations, 8(1), 121-158.

Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual review of anthropology, 95-117. 

Courses taught

2012 – 2013       

Theory of Ethnographic Practices (Research MA Theory course);

Thesis class course (BA);

Oral exam (BA);

Race and (Physical) Anthropology (BA)

2010 – 2011       

Theory of Ethnographic Practices (Research MA Theory course);

Race and (Physical) Anthropology (BA) 

2009 – 2010       

Theorizing Practices, Practicing Theory (MA core course, Medical Anthropology);

Klassieke Etnografieën, Annex Schrijfpracticum (BA, Anthropology);

Moderne Etnografieën, Annex Schrijfpracticum (BA, Anthropology) 

2008 – 2009       

Governance in Policy Science (MA, Political Sciences Department);

Theorizing Practices, Practicing Theory (MA core course, Medical Anthropology);

Research Protocol (MA, Medical Anthropology)