Race and Biomedicine Beyond the Lab, September 2019

Last week, I presented the methodology and rationale for Mix and Match at an event at King’s College London. Race and Biomedicine Beyond the Lab in the 21st Century was a two-day workshop that brought together scholars studying the convergence of race and biomedicine in various national contexts.

As well as getting the opportunity to present the project framework, it was amazing to meet researchers working on diverse topics – from Lewis Miles’ current PhD study on clinical understandings of the relationship between race and kidney function measurement, to Alka Menon’s fascinating work on racialised standards in cosmetic surgery and the surgeons who have racialised specialisations (I didn’t know there were clinicians who “do Asian noses”).

It was also an opportunity to meet scholars like Amade M’charek, Vivette García Deister, Tony Hatch, and Anne Pollock whose work on different aspects race/biomedicine has been instructive in developing Mix and Match.

There were probably thirty or so colleagues in attendance at the event, which has now generated a research network. The network, led by an international steering committee, aims to locate new opportunities to take work forward, and I hope will be a useful venue for me to share ideas and get critical feedback as I begin data collection for Mix and Match in the months ahead.