10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17325
The article focuses on circulations and what circulations bring about. It does so by following the movements of DNA through different domains of forensic practice. By zooming in on DNA and the role it came to play in the Dutch Marianne Vaatstra case, the paper demonstrates the performative work of circulations and invites to attend empirically to circulations as an object of research. The article is organized along three steps, in which it is argued that: circulations bring about identities; that circulations make context; circulations are permanent and can only be stopped actively. In the analysis, circulation is no longer to be understood as a process of transmission, as a simple movement of people, commodities, or ideas from one place to another. Rather, the conclusion invites to attend to circulation as a performative event. An event that co-shapes not only humans and things as they move through space and time, but also the contexts in which this happen in situated manners.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17325
2
en
Amade M’charek
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
genetics
Performative Circulations: On Flows and Stops in Forensic DNA Practices
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
7
Lectures
2017-01-24
2023-06-21
2017-01-24
2023-08-21
9-34
TS
Amade M’charek
2016
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17325
9
University of Amsterdam
2038-3460
2
genetics
en
34
Performative Circulations: On Flows and Stops in Forensic DNA Practices
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17325/16176
7
                                                                             Lecture
                                                                                      9




Performative Circulations: On Flows
and Stops in Forensic DNA Practices
Amade M’charek
University of Amsterdam (NL)


     Abstract: The article focuses on circulations and what circulations bring
     about. It does so by following the movements of DNA through different
     domains of forensic practice. By zooming in on DNA and the role it came
     to play in the Dutch Marianne Vaatstra case, the paper demonstrates the
     performative work of circulations and invites to attend empirically to circu-
     lations as an object of research. The article is organized along three steps,
     in which it is argued that: circulations bring about identities; that circula-
     tions make context; circulations are permanent and can only be stopped
     actively. In the analysis, circulation is no longer to be understood as a pro-
     cess of transmission, as a simple movement of people, commodities, or ide-
     as from one place to another. Rather, the conclusion invites to attend to
     circulation as a performative event. An event that co-shapes not only hu-
     mans and things as they move through space and time, but also the con-
     texts in which this happen in situated manners.

     Keywords: DNA; forensics; circulation; anthropology of science; genetics.

     Corresponding author: Amade M'charek, Department of Anthropology,
     University of Amsterdam. Postbus 15509, 1001 NA - Amsterdam, The
     Netherlands. Email: A.A.Mcharek@uva.nl.



   In November 2012, no, to be precise, on Monday 19 November at
5.38 hours in the morning the well-known Dutch crime reporter Peter R.
de Vries sent out the following tweet.

             CASE #VAATSTRA: Man arrested. White suspect, Frisian, lived 2.5
             km from crime scene. 100 percent DNA-match! — Peter R. de Vries.1



    1
      See for example this news report on the website of NRC Handelsblad:
(http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/11/19/arrestatie-in-zaak-vaatstra-dna-match-bij-
bekende-van-familie/). See also the follow up tweet by De Vries: 'Breaking news:
white man (44) arrested for murder #vaatstra! 100 percent DNA-match! Hurray!

TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies
7 (2) pp. 9-34 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                                2016
10                                                                  Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)


    This message was picked up by the media immediately and it is not
hard to understand that the content came to entertain the minds of many
people. Now, the fact that this message was going around so quickly is
not the most interesting aspect of the theme of circulations, the topic of
this address2. For, let us have a look at this message and what it draws to-
gether. There is: genetics in the form of DNA; identity for there is a
100% match; race since it spoke of a white suspect; ethnicity this suspect
is also Frisian; social evils namely a serious crime; but also media, old and
new: after all it is about a television reporter using twitter; the technology
to send, receive and read twitter; and much more.
    This knot suggests that our tendency to perceive the world as well-
ordered, where science and society have and know their designated plac-
es, does not hold true in practice3. It is precisely this knot, and the various
compositions thereof, that constitutes an interesting challenge to an an-
thropology of science. Circulations, as I want to show here, bring about
and maintain such knots4.
     It was already in the early eighties that Donna Haraway introduced
the Cyborg concept, a mixture of man and machine, to indicate that these
knot-like manifestations do not only concern the things around us, but al-
so ourselves (Haraway 1991). In her Cyborg Manifesto she pointed at the
inextricable relation between nature and culture, between humans and
technology. Her manifest was especially aimed at feminist colleagues and

Hurray! Hurray!!' (See in Dutch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterRdeV-
/status/270377910760771584).
    2
       This text is a slightly revised version of my inaugural lecture delivered on
Friday 18 September 2015 on the acceptance of the position of Professor in the
Anthropology of Science. In the Netherlands these inaugural lectures are a par-
ticular genre. They cater for a wide and diverse public, they have to be somehow
innovative but also accessible, scholarly but entertaining, reporting on research
but also agenda setting. An almost impossible task. A nice tradition is that such
lectures reserve ample space to thank colleagues and friends for the help, conver-
sations and inspirations along the way. These words of thank are unfortunately
not included in this text, but they are there in the original;
(https://www.academia.edu/26836606/_Circulations_a_new_object_for_an_anthro
pology_of_science_Inaugural_address_Amade_Mcharek_September_18_2015_).
    3
       The division between science and society is reflected in a commonly heard
expression used by scientists when they are reminded of the societal effects of
knowledge and technologies: "we deliver the facts and the tools and it is up to so-
ciety to decide whether and how to use these." However, the political impact of
this division cannot to be underestimated.
    4
       For an inspiration on knots and threads see Donna Haraway Reads the Na-
tional Geographic on Primates at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
eLN2ToEIlwM. See also Thomas (1991) for an approach that attends to the en-
tangled-ness of colonial objects. Therein Thomas shows that the circulation of ob-
ject is not only key to social life but also helps to problematize the distinction be-
tween “centre” and “periphery”, “here” and “there”, or “us” and “them”.
M’charek                                                                         11
intended to entice them to relate to science and technology. An invitation
to look at science and technology not merely as instruments of domina-
tion that harm the core of who we are (and therefore need to be criticised
and fought against). No, science and technology are at the core of the so-
cial. Precisely the knot is who we are. Without clean water (technology)
we would die, without spectacles a great part of social traffic (e.g. driving
a car, reading) becomes impossible, without coffee you would have a
headache.
    Science is politics with other means, so Bruno Latour (1988, 218)5.
Yes, and that is why science concerns us all and not only the scientists.
We therefore need to go into how knowledge is put into practice, how it
can be made relevant and what the consequences are and for whom.6
Now, attention to science in practice may benefit from an anthropological
method, a method that enables us to study everyday routines and con-
cerns. Anthropologists are known for travelling distant places to study
strange cultures. That is true. But anthropology also teaches us how we
can make the familiar strange. How to have a fresh view on cultures,
which are closer to home. This lead for example to a series of so called
laboratory studies. Studies in which the tribes of these STS ethnographers
consisted among others, of geneticists, biotechnologists, computer scien-
tists, mathematicians and high-energy physicists7. What is interesting
about these so-called laboratory ethnographies is that they completely al-
tered the notion that science is something that takes place mainly in the
heads of very smart scientists. They pointed at the role of technology and
tradition, routine and methods, financial means and networks when pro-
ducing knowledge8. The political intervention made by these studies is
not to be underestimated. In contrast to the dominant image of scientific
rationality, they offered a view of science as a cultural activity. An activity

    5
      More in general, Latour (1993) has argued that the modern tendency to sep-
arate nature from culture or things from humans has led to a divide between sci-
ence (representing things) and politics (representing humans). A divide that he
has famously termed “the modern constitution”.
    6
      Scholars such as Donna Haraway, Annemarie Mol or Evelyn Fox Keller have
encouraged us to get involved with science and technology. At the same time they
have, especially Annemarie Mol, shifted our attention; instead of situating
knowledge in theories, laws of nature, method or abstract facts, we need to study
science in practice. See, for example Mol (1990).
    7
      For the first generation of laboratory studies, see the classics: Bruno Latour
and Steve Woolgar (1979), Karin Knorr-Cetina (1981), Mike Lynch (1985), Sha-
ron Traweek (1988) and John Law (1994). These and other STS ethnographers
had spent months studying the every day life in various laboratories, and rather
than providing us with a critique of the scientific facts, they had mapped out sci-
ence in action and drawn our attention to the process of knowledge production.
    8
      Latour (1987) has thus suggested a method in which we focus more on the
scientist’s hands (what she does in practice) rather than his head (what she thinks
in general).
12                                                            Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

which, moreover, is not universal but situated in time and space. Science
as Practice and Culture, reads the title of a classic volume within science
and technology studies (Pickering 1992).
    Even though it is fun to be in the laboratory, here I wish to shift our
attention to the world outside the lab. Or more specifically, I want to
draw our attention to the heavy traffic between laboratory and society
and argue why circulations deserve our attention and why an anthropolo-
gy of science needs to study circulations. Where the first generation la-
boratory researchers showed us that science is a cultural practice, today I
hope to show that circulations are cultural practices. Or, to put it more
strongly, circulations make culture!
    One of the fields where this traffic between science and society is very
heavy is forensics. Forensics in fact exists by virtue of an intensive rela-
tionship between science and society. An example can clarify this traffic.
One morning, in the north of the Netherlands, a young woman was found
in a meadow. She was murdered, her throat had been slit and her body
showed signs of sexual abuse. The forensic team of the police and the
coroner secured the traces at the crime scene. Thirteen biological traces,
which were found on and around the victim’s body, like blood, pubic hair
and traces of sperm were sent to the Netherlands Forensic Institute
(NFI). Various individuals in the victim’s circle were considered as possi-
ble suspects, but quickly regarded as uninteresting by the police. An asy-
lum seekers’ centre in a nearby village came into view. The consequence
was that a number of former residents were suspected by the local people
for many years. The fact that the girl’s throat was slit with a knife, was de-
scribed by a politician as a non-Dutch way of killing9. People who make a
sacrifice by ritually slaughtering a lamb every year, handle their knives
and victims in such a way. This was grist to the mill of the local popula-
tion. Because of the horrific crime the nerves were obviously already on
edge, but with this statement about cutting throats, feelings were running
higher and became violent, especially towards the residents of the asylum
seekers’ centre.
    After months of investigation the police, however, was left empty-
handed. Because, as it happens, also the suspected asylum seekers, whose
identities were made public on national television by the crime reporter
Peter R. de Vries, could be excluded based on DNA testing. In the foren-
sic laboratory where I was then working, the case did not leave us indif-
ferent. The tensions in society and the conflict that took on racist forms
encouraged the head of the laboratory to act. An act, as he called it, of
civil disobedience (Knijff de 2006). For, what was the case?
    Population genetic research into the mitochondrial DNA (DNA
which is maternally inherited) and into DNA on the Y-chromosome (the

     9
     Thus was suggested by the late Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn
(1999). Pim Fortuyn was hinting at he Muslim background of the residents of the
Asylum Seekers Centre.
M’charek                                                                       13
male sex chromosome which is paternally inherited), makes it possible to
estimate the geographic origin of a person. Comparing the mitochondrial
DNA or the Y-chromosome of an individual to a DNA database (holding
details of populations from all over the world) you can determine in
which population that specific profile occurs more frequent. This way
you can make a probabilistic statement about the geographic origin of
that individual (M’charek 2005a).
    But that is population genetics research. The fact that particular re-
search is scientifically possible and sound does not make it legal and ad-
missible in a trial (you cannot simply use it in the criminal investigation).
DNA research into the identity or the appearance of an unknown suspect
is a taboo in many European countries. In the Netherlands that kind of
research was prohibited by law until 200310. When in 2000 the head of
the forensic institute decided to conduct research into the geographic
origin of the unknown suspect, it was indeed an act of civil disobedi-
ence.11 An act, which was intended to calm people’s feelings and to shift
the local population’s attention from the residents of the asylum seekers’
centre to the general population. His research indeed suggested that the
Y-chromosome of the unknown suspect is rare in populations from the
Middle East (where most asylum seekers came from) and more common
in the North-Western European and Dutch population. To be sure the
case at issue here is the well known Marianne Vaatstra case12.
    Although I made the story of this case comfortably linear, in reality
there are endless loops. We saw many things move: evidence, bodily ma-
terial, documents, people (medical, biological, investigative, legal) exper-
tise, victims, suspects, refugees and legislation. In order to systematise this
constant traffic and to analyse the effects, we will single out one element
and use that as an example, DNA. By zooming in on DNA and making
use of examples of, especially the Vaatstra case, I will show the relevance
of circulations13. I will do this in three steps and argue that:
        1) circulations bring about identities;
        2) circulations make context; and that,
        3) circulations are permanent and can only be stopped actively.


   10
       The use of this technology is allowed in the UK, but forbidden in other Eu-
ropean countries.
    11
       For an overview of the legislation see M’charek (2005b) and Toom (2010).
    12
       For a detailed description of this case see Meulenbroek and Poley (2014).
Also see M’charek (2005b) and Toom (2010).
    13
       Attention for flows and circulations and the politics such movements bring
about has been brought to our attention in particular by postcolonial scholars
(Anderson 2002). Movements, so Stuart Hall (1992, 293), “provoke theoretical
moments”. And Stacy Leigh Pigg has put it as follows: “we need to find out more
about how science and technology travel, not whether they belong to one culture
or another” (in Anderson 2002, 644).
14                                                                Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)


1. Circulations Bring about Identities

    Even though nowadays, thanks to popular series like CSI, we are all
too familiar with the route from crime scene to the forensic laboratory, it
actually is a miracle that the biological traces which were found in the
Vaatstra case, led to DNA at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), a
place more than 200 kilometre to the south of the crime scene, where
subsequently a DNA profile could be developed, which was regarded
admissible evidence later in court14. It is even more amazing that this was
possible without a geneticist or legal expert being at the crime scene. That
these are not vain contemplations but serious analytical questions, be-
comes clear with an anecdote from the controversial O.J. Simpson case.
In that case, the famous American football player was suspected of the
murder of his ex-wife and her lover. Although all appearances were
against Simpson, the DNA evidence failed, among other things, because
camera footage showed that the police had secured various biological
traces without changing the gloves in between. The biological material
was not secured in the proper manner and it may have been mixed with
other DNA (contamination). Even if you would be able to scientifically
rule out contamination, you need to make it plausible legally15.
    The route from crime scene to court is aimed at making DNA a legally
valid piece of evidence. But on that route humans and things arrive
changed. Whereas circulations are typically seen as a mere process of
transmission of (humans and things) from A to B, I will show here that
movement always entails change as well16. By moving, “the knot” takes on

     14
        See for a classic on the durability of knowledge and objects across geo-
graphical distances Law (1986); and for a more recent and beautiful example ad-
dressing medical practices, see Pols (2012). For a key paper on the effect of CSI
on legal practice see Kruse (2010).
     15
        See the special issue focusing on evidence published in response to the O.J.
Simpson case in Social Studies of Science (Lynch and Jasanoff 1998 and M’charek
2000; 2008).
     16
        This is, as we know, a central claim in Actor Network Theory, also known
as the ‘sociology of translation’. Translation implies movement and change, see
for example, Callon (1986) or Law and Hassard (1999). Working in a more an-
thropological tradition in her Gender of the Gift, Marilyn Strathern (1988) has
beautifully shown, that a gender identity does not inhere in bodies. She states:
“one cannot read such gender ascriptions off in advance, not even when women
appear to be the very items gifted. It does not follow that “women” only carry
with them a “female” identity. The basis for classification does not inhere in the
objects themselves but in how they are transacted and to what end. The action is
the gendered activity” (Strathern 1988, xi, italic added). More in general circula-
tion can be considered a classical theme in anthropology. Anthropologists have
ever since Malinowski (1922) attended to the movement of people and things (the
latter in the form of gifts or goods) and analysed the cultural meaning they trans-
M’charek                                                                         15
a different composition, a different identity. Starting with the DNA. It is
of great importance that the police at the scene, usually Crime Scene In-
vestigators, is not only competent in securing traces but also has insight
into the trajectory that follows, the genetic research. When a number of
properties of the DNA are not taken into account, DNA may lose its
identification power. Let us have a look at some of these properties.
    1. The DNA molecule is robust but cannot bear humidity. The infa-
mous Schiedammerparkmoord case and the subsequent extensive investi-
gation, brought to light that the victim’s body was stored incorrectly (in a
plastic cover) as a result of which the biological traces of the suspect were
unusable, the DNA originating from the suspect was destroyed in the
humid environment17.
    2. DNA is also sensitive to contamination. This is an extra concern
because there often is only a little amount of DNA of the suspect present
compared to that of the victim or police officer. This risk of contamina-
tion was never before as vividly clear as it was in the case of the Phantom
of Heilbronn. Here it concerned a female serial killer who was linked to
numerous crimes, in France, Austria and Germany. Between 1993 and
2009 nothing more was known about this killer at large than her DNA.
Only in early 2009 the assumption arose that the cotton swabs (with
which DNA samples were taken) could be contaminated. It thus soon be-
came clear that the Phantom of Heilbronn was an unsuspecting employee
at an Austrian company that supplied the cotton swabs18. The cottons
swabs are sterilised before they leave the company. Bacteria and fungi die.
But it has no effect on DNA. As I already indicated, it is a robust molecule.
    3. Finally, there is a serious risk of swapping samples and that you are
examining the DNA of a different person than that of the person of inter-
est. There are numerous examples of mix-ups. For example, the 25 years
old Mohamed Boucharka was picked up time and again between 2008
and 2014 for car-thefts in which he was not involved. At the NFI his
DNA profile had been swapped with that of someone else and despite
protest and lack of other evidence he was pulled in every time for crimes

mit as they traffic. The classical reference here is the path breaking edited volume
by Arjun Appadurai in The Social Life of Things (1986). In my approach I want
to move beyond the transmission of meaning and focus on the doing not just of
the things that move, but the doing of the very movement itself, the performativity
of circulations.
    17
       In this case the ten years old Nienke was killed and her friend Maikel
stabbed in a park in the city Schiedam. Cees B was profiled because of pae-
dophilic tendencies and wrongly convicted. After 4 years of detention the actual
murderer, Wik H., confessed the crime and a series of blunders that were made
during the police and forensic investigation started to surface; see Posthumus
(2005).
    18
       Claudia Himmelreich (2009-03-27), “Germany’s Phantom Serial Killer: A
DNA Blunder”, Time (http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,18881-
26,00.html, accessed 8 September 2015).
16                                                               Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

that were committed by someone else. This mix-up came to the surface
when a bright police officer noticed that Boucharka could not have com-
mitted a certain crime because he simply was no longer living in the
Netherlands19.
    These examples make clear that DNA is more than just biological ma-
terial. The DNA is inextricably bound up with all those procedures and
techniques necessary to be able to use it as means of identification. With-
out those procedures and techniques, you do not have DNA to start with
(maybe a T-shirt with blood on it, but no more than that).
    On the route from crime scene to laboratory the forensic team of the
police and the forensic researchers in the laboratory need to be attuned to
each other’s practices. But in order to ensure that the DNA does not only
arrive at the Lab but also in court, they also need to have knowledge of
legal rules and regulations. These prescribe, for example, that their joint
work should result in an uninterrupted chain of custody. In concrete
terms this means that every step and every action taken with the evidence
needs to be traceable on paper and that this chain may not have any gaps
or ambivalences20. In short, paying attention to what is needed to make
DNA evidence from a biological trace teaches us that the identity of the
forensic team is complex. Anticipating the future method in the laborato-
ry and the preconditions, which are set for the evidence in court, changes
the identity of the forensic investigator. During her investigative work she
is not just a police officer but also a professional who has knowledge of
legal and scientific possibilities of the DNA test.
    The same goes for the identity of the geneticist. In accord with rules
prescribed in the law he has to conduct his research in an accredited la-
boratory and use validated techniques21. This also becomes clear in the
Vaatstra case. The population geneticist’s research into geographic origin,
that we encountered in this case, could possibly be regarded as part of
unremitting labour that could produce new insights for science. But be-
cause he did not examine random DNA but forensic trace evidence, he
labelled his work as an act of civil disobedience. This indicates that his
expertise not only consists of undisputable scientific knowledge, but also


     19
        Victor Schildkamp (6 November 2014) “DNA blunder takes six years of my
life" (“DNA-blunder kost zes jaar van m’n leven”), AD (http://www.ad.nl-
/ad/nl/4561/Wetenschap/article/detail/3784032/2014/11/06/Dna-blunder-kost-
zes-jaar-van-m-n-leven.dhtml, accessed 8 September 2015); also see
http://www.forensischinstituut.nl/over_het_nfi/nieuws/2014/verwisseling-dna-
monster-uit-2008-ontdekt.aspx?cp=119&cs=55898 and https://www.om.nl/vaste-
onderdelen/zoeken/@87112/gevolgen-dna/
     20
        The quality of partnership and the focus on cooperation between the 'chain
partners' received a major boost through the infamous ‘Schiedammer Park’ mur-
der case. See the report of the committee Posthumus (2005).
     21
        For a case in which DNA testing performed by a non-accredited laboratory
risked the evidential value of DNA, see M'charek, Hagendijk and de Vries (2013).
M’charek                                                                       17
                22
of criminal law .
     The route of the biological material from crime scene to lab and out
again comprises therefore more than the transmission of material and in-
formation. Along that route a biological trace is made into DNA evi-
dence, a police officer becomes a forensic sleuth and a genetic researcher
becomes an expert witness. The various actors together make DNA what
it is: forensic evidence. But also the other way around, the DNA that cir-
culates between them makes them what they are; all are more than their
occupational title would suggest.




          Fig. 1 – Two stills from the video The Face of Litter. Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwL5HkEAo8k (published 21 April 2015).

    But what does DNA make of us? What kind of identities does it give
to all those who are not connected professionally to this process, the av-
erage citizens? How do circulations between laboratory and society affect
who we are and how we relate to each other? Looking at daily news
teaches us that genetics already left the laboratories a long time ago and
that it mixes in with society everywhere. Whether it concerns issues re-

     22
        Because the study was unsupported legally – it was simply forbidden by law
– the DNA evidence failed. The DNA research, although it had its effect in socie-
ty, temporarily leading the focus away from the asylum seekers as suspects, was
not allowed to be part of the legal file of Marianne Vaatstra.
18                                                                Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

garding reproduction, disease and health, criminality and behaviour,
origin and history, and yes, even if it concerns your choice of sport or
street litter, genetics seems to be relevant (Fig. 1)23.
     In “The Face of Litter’ we are introduced to a clean-up campaign in
Hong Kong where, by means of DNA phenotyping, a face is given to the
‘litter-suspects’; people who supposed to have soiled the public space, an
offence that is heavily fined in Hong Kong. The short film shows how the
suspects of street litter were given a face and put in the pillory, as it were.
Those faces were made based on DNA traces found on cigarette butts,
left carton coffee cups and used condoms. If you think that this is a cul-
tural oddity of Hong Kong, or maybe even an art project, you are mistak-
en24. The campaign in Hong Kong makes use of the services of an Ameri-
can forensic company that works together with scientists from Pennsylva-
nia and Leuven and currently also gave this face to the unknown suspect
of a murder case in South Carolina, based on DNA (Fig. 2).




     Fig. 2 – Face produced with the help of the analytic software package ‘Snap-
shot’ of the American company Parabon NanoLabs, a forensic DNA phenotyping
             service used to give a face to an unknown suspect . Source:
                  https://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/posters.

     23
       See M'charek (2013) for some varied examples, but there is a vast scholar-
ship on the social and legal aspects of genetics. For a Dutch example wherein
DNA testing is made relevant for the general public in the context of sports and
physical health, see: https://www.dnafit.com.
    24
       See e.g. the well-known art project of Heather Dewey-Hagborg who uses
similar forensic genetic technologies to produce a face based on litter collected in
the streets (http://deweyhagborg.com).
M’charek                                                                         19


    There is a lot that can be said about this, but not here, today25.
    Since its introduction into the courtroom in the late eighties, DNA is
the unchallenged champion of forensic investigation26. It is the golden
standard and the key to identifying suspects and victims. It actually start-
ed with an issue regarding family reunification in Great Britain in 1984. A
Guyanese mother wanted to bring her son to England, but could not
prove their kinship relation with documents. When Alec Jeffreys (now Sir
Alec Jeffreys!) became aware of the matter he suggested to test the rela-
tion via DNA (Jeffreys et al. 1985). This way he could prove that the
young man was indeed this woman’s son and the brother of her children.
Soon the question presented itself whether this technology with which
similarity or difference could be established between two individuals
could also be used in a comparison between a biologic trace left at a
crime scene and an individual.
    Enters Forensic DNA! And the rest is history…


2. Circulations Make Context

    Circulations are not merely transmissions. At issue is not simply the
movement of people and things from A to B. No, as I just argued, move-
ment also means change. Circulations therefore produce new identities.
Circulations are performative. And they do more! Within the social sci-
ences the context is represented as a stable factor, it is the firm ground
beneath any social science research, or so it seems27. Proper research
takes the context into account as to explain phenomena. Globalisation for
instance (an exemplar context: large, cumbersome, everywhere, so it
seems) is often regarded as the cause of enormous circulations on a global
level28. But it actually is the other way around. For example, the fact that
in our society the demand for and the interest in genetic knowledge are
increasing is not the cause of circulation, but the result. Precisely circula-
tions perform a context where society and genetics can relate to one an-
other. In short, circulations are not the result of the context. No, circula-
tions produce context29.


    25
       See for a first attempt, M’charek, Data-Face and Ontologies of Race, Theo-
rizing the Contemporary, “Cultural Anthropology website”, March 24, 2016
(http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/835-data-face-and-ontologies-of-race).
    26
       National Research Council (1996); Lynch, Cole, McNally and Jordan (2008)
and Williams and Johnson (2008).
    27
       For a problematization of this take on ‘context’, see Asdal and Moser (2012).
    28
       See for examples Lee and Lipuma (2002). In fact circulation is often evoked
together with globalisation.
    29
       For another example of rethinking self-evident, often hierarchical, often
causal, relationships, through the figure of the parasite, see Michel Serres (2007
20                                                               Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

   Just imagine, a murder is committed, here and now in this church
(Fig. 3). Within no time, this sacred ground, cemetery, place of science
and dialogue will change into a forensic laboratory. Something like in fig. 4.




    Fig. 3 – The Old Lutheran church at the Spui in Amsterdam filled with listen-
            ers. Source: http://www.uva.nl/nieuws-agenda/nieuws/uva-
 nieuws/content/nieuwsberichten/2012/07/uva-opent-academisch-jaar-met-blik-
                                  op-europa.html.

    It is obvious that the forensic lab is far away: in The Hague or Leiden.
Yet under such circumstances, a change of context would take place right
in front of our eyes. People in white suits, hands and feet protected, enter
the space. Science and technology move in. A system of investigation, of
detecting traces, analysing, securing, and documentation will unfold. And
as we have learned there is more that enters the room. Law and regula-
tions will settle themselves on the shoulders of the forensic investigator.
Possibly the media will enter the new space. This all shows that the
boundary between the laboratory there and society here can easily be un-
done. In this case that would be temporarily. But the point I want to
make is that such shifting of boundaries between practices is an everyday
phenomenon, a matter of fact. The second point is that this should not be

[1980]): 224-234). There is a family of resemblance here with Appadurai’s (1996)
theory of flows. This theory (and its counterpart, “the production of location”) is
about how – when modernity goes global – the circulation of people, ideas, me-
dia, technology, and finance provides the generative matrix for creating numerous
and disjunctive “imaginary worlds”. My point here is that the fact of circulation
and its performative capacity is not limited to a mode of production or a global
organization of the social. It is rather a matter of life.
M’charek                                                                         21
regarded as a typical example of the “colonisation of society by the pow-
erful science”. Because there are also reverse movements.




    Fig. 4 – The Old Lutheran church at the Spui in Amsterdam filled with listen-
                 ers and a forensic team. Source: olafposselt.com.


   To clarify that let us return to the Vaatstra case. On 7 October 1999,
there was an information evening in the Frisian city of Kollum about the
expansion of the asylum seekers’ centre. This meeting, however, got
completely out of hand. In his inaugural lecture the population geneticist
and head of the Forensic Laboratory for DNA Research (FLDO) Peter
de Knijff relates the following:

    Shortly after, I receive a call from someone on the team of police investigators
responsible for the investigation into this murder […]. The request was simple:
could the FLDO help? Was it possible in any way to get a clue [about] the geo-
graphic origin of the offender by means of a DNA test? The team had heard that
we were working on such a method. If […] it could be proven that the offender
was not an immigrant but, for example a Frisian, there was a fair chance that it
would become quiet again (de Knijff, 2006: 2).

   The resentment and insinuation against asylum seekers thus entered
the lab and helped to move the DNA research into a different direction.
This way societal concerns helped to make the laboratory into a socially
engaged entity. While law and regulations reside on the shoulders of the
forensic geneticist, he decides to an act of civil disobedience, and carry
out DNA research that was prohibited by law.
22                                                                 Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)


3. Circulations Are Permanent and Can only Be Stopped
Actively

    A third and last characteristic of circulations, which I would like to at-
tend to here is that circulations are not the exception but the rule. Simply
put: everything moves, from the level of the molecules to the social order.
And it moves permanently. But circulations can be channelled or even
stopped30.
    During the Vaatstra case four DNA laws were implemented in the
Dutch criminal law, of which two were directly ‘provoked’ by the case it-
self. In 2001 an extension of the first DNA law was introduced. This
makes it possible to apply DNA testing in cases of High Volume Crime,
like burglaries and care thefts. The 2001 law also regulates the compiling
and using of DNA databanks. In 2004, in view of that databank, the
DNA Testing convicted persons Act became operational. It states that all
those who were convicted of an offence with a penalty of 4 years or more
(and that is easily done, because it concerns the maximum sentence) are
summoned to give DNA to be stored in the databank. Currently the
DNA databank holds 245,826 profiles31. In 2003 the Externally Visible
Personal Characteristics Act came into force. And in 2012 the Law on
Familial Searching became a fact; the law with which the suspect in the
Vaatstra case got caught. This law makes it possible to start looking for
partial matches. For example, by comparing DNA left at the crime scene
with profiles in the DNA database, or with those of participants in a pop-
ulation screening. A partial match points to the possibility that the sus-


     30
        This resonates with Marilyn Strathern’s (1996) instance on the importance
of cuts and the cutting of networks, stopping the flow and extension. In her Par-
tial Connections (1991), Strathern’s argument is more methodological and aimed
at problematising the ideal of social science research to present the “full picture”,
or “wholenes”. She puts it as follows: “The realization that wholeness is rhetoric
itself is relentlessly exemplified in collage, or collections that do not collect but
display the intractability of the disparate elements. Yet such techniques of show-
ing that things do not add up paradoxically often include not less cutting but
more – a kind of hyper- cutting of perceived events, moments, impressions. And if
elements are presented as so many cut-outs, they are inevitably presented as parts
coming from other whole cloths, larger pieces, somewhere” (Strathern 1991: 110).
Moreover, the notion of circulation advanced throughout my talk steers clear
from a so called ‘equilibrium thinking’ (common in e.g. economic theory), i.e. the
idea that all movements will come to an end by themselves (think e.g. of the al-
leged work of the invisible hand of the market), once equilibrium has been
reached. As if equilibrium is the nature of things. Attending to circulation is pre-
cisely aimed at understanding how, when and where things are moving or rather
stopped (see also Lee and LiPuma 2002).
     31
        See: https://dnadatabank.forensischinstituut.nl/010RDNAdatabanken/010-
DNAdatabankvoorstrafzaken/010Samenstellingenwerkwijze/index.aspx.
M’charek                                                                          23
pect is a family member of the person with whom the partial match was
found (a brother, father, uncle, etc.).
     These laws are the effect of the heavy traffic between science and soci-
ety. And even though, especially in the case of forensic DNA evidence,
they assign detailed roles and set boundaries between science and society,
they also encourage and maintain the traffic between them. The well-
filled DNA database is just one example. One could say that with this
chain of legislation the DNA has created its own infrastructure, an infra-
structure that maintains continuous circulations between science and so-
ciety32.
     The fact that circulations are permanent does not mean that circula-
tions cannot be stopped. There are numerous examples of temporary or
more durable stops. A prosaic example. In the forensic laboratory ex-
tracting DNA (taking DNA out of the cell) is a critical moment. In par-
ticular when it concerns fragile, dirtied or little evidence, the laboratory is
afraid of possible contaminations. A small piece of foreign DNA at the
start of the process may become dominant due to the techniques that are
used and ‘overshadow’ the evidence (think of the Phantom of Heil-
bronn). But the fact is that everywhere where there are people, there is
bodily material twirling around in the room. In order to prevent these
twirling biological parts contaminating the evidence, the air in the labora-
tory is regulated. There are rooms with overpressure and with under
pressure in relation to each other. Where the DNA is extracted there is
overpressure. Twirling particles are kept outside, or at least pushed out of
this lab space. Circulations stopped. Stopping circulation at this basic ma-
terial level presumes work. It makes use of knowledge and technology to
regulate air circulations. It is work that is aimed at isolating the DNA, as
well as being serviceable to arriving at the legal truth and to the course of
justice. This thus shows that stopping circulations is not only a technical
but also a normative matter.
     A second example from the Vaatstra case. When it was finally legally
possible to make use of Familial searching, to everyone’s surprise the end-
ing of the Vaatstra case was much faster a reality than expected. 7,581
men were invited to donate DNA and already in the first batch of 81
men, two Y-chromosomal DNA matches were found. Charissa van Koo-
ten, who coordinated the DNA testing at the NFI, established these par-


   32
       This is one could say and example of what Lee and LiPuma (2002) have
called “cultures of circulation”. What I try to allude to here reminds us also of the
rugby example that Steven Brown mobilises to explicate the universe of Michel
Serres: “Consider a game of rugby. The players are oriented around the ball, the
token. They act in relation to the token, which is like a little sun around which the
players orbit. The players become almost extensions of the token – its attributes.
They are the means by which it passes, their movements have the sole aim of
maintaining the play, of passing the token between one another. In so doing the
token weaves the collective” (Brown, 2002: 21).
24                                                                Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

ticular facts. After a reality check with colleagues she called the team of
police investigators. Their premise was that they did not have the suspect
but a family member and that they still had to investigate into the suspect.

     I phoned through the matches to Ron Rintjema of the 3D-team (team of po-
lice investigators, AM). The 3D-team obviously did have the names that went with
the DNA- seal codes […]. The 3D-team subsequently had the genealogy of the
two families drawn up at the Netherlands Centre for Family History CBG) in The
Hague. […]. It concerned two families with one common remote ancestor, a cer-
tain Jasper Jans, of whom was known that he was an innkeeper in Westergeest in
1748. The large diagram with all the family lines came to hang in a prominent
place in the room of the 3D-team (Lex Meulenbroek and Paul Poley, 2014, pp.
445-446).

    It is clear that genealogical knowledge and family trees had entered
the police station and that there is traffic between the station and the fo-
rensic lab in the form of e.g. information, telephony, DNA seal codes. But
the example is particularly important because it shows that certain circu-
lations were brought to a halt. The names that go with the DNA do not
end up in the laboratory (i.e. in case of DNA familial searching). This
stop has been provided for by law and is necessary to protect civilians
who are in no way related to the crime. It is therefore also a political stop
of circulations.
     Circulations bring about identities, they bring about context and they
are permanent unless we actively stop them. And that, I would like to
emphasize, does not only apply to the forensic practice, but also to all
other domains, for example medicine, food supply, ecology, human mi-
gration, financial markets, etc. That is why circulations are crucial objects
of study and why an anthropology of science should attend to them.


4. Circulation and Anthropology of Science: Political Con-
sequences

    My argument in in this address was about the ways in which various
actors that are involved in forensic research relate to one another in varie-
ties of configurations. They literally bear responsibility for the DNA to-
gether. Given this inherent involvement, the responsibility of geneticists
for these identification techniques does not stop at the laboratories’ walls.
We hear scientists claim only too frequently that they merely produce
knowledge and that society makes normative considerations33. Circula-
tions show that scientists and legal experts, police and justice, citizens and
politicians are inextricable part of this process. They/we together bear re-


    33
       In a series of publications we have tried to communicate this problematics to
forensic geneticists (see. M’charek, Toom and Prainsack 2011; Toom et al. 2015).
M’charek                                                                         25
sponsibility for what technology makes of us.
    To illustrate, again the Vaatstra case and we go back in time. Because
tactical and technical research did not provide further clues about the
identity of the suspect after six months, in December 1999, a DNA popu-
lation screening was carried out. 186 men were invited to give their DNA.
These men were selected because they were, for instance, acquaintances
of the victim, or because they had already been convicted for sex offenc-
es34. Participation in the screening is officially voluntary. But you incur
suspicion when you refuse to cooperate. Renze Merkus (I mention his
name because he contacted the media himself to share his story) was such
a person35. Because he kept refusing, the Examining Magistrate invoked
the Toothbrush decision to get his DNA. This decision states that, for the
purpose of the criminal investigation, use may be made of bodily material
that is not directly, knowingly and willingly, taken from the suspect36. At
issue is bodily material that we all unconsciously leave around. Based on
DNA testing on cigarette butts and paper-tissues collected in the envi-
ronment of Renze Merkus, he could be excluded as a possible suspect.
This application gnaws at an important constitutional principle: the pre-
sumption of innocence. This principle says that as a suspect you are inno-
cent until proven guilty (also see M’charek 2008; Toom 2010; Toom and
M’charek 2011. This constitutional foundation is now shifting. Because of
the DNA that circulates between us, as a citizen, one becomes guilty until
DNA excludes one as a suspect.
    Furthermore, the research into the geographic origin of the unknown
suspect led to the conclusion that the profile of the suspect is more com-
mon in the Netherlands and in North-western Europe. It is significant
that this was immediately translated in the media to: the offender is a
white man. This racialisation of identities is even made explicit in the law
which was elicited by the Vaatstra case. In the Externally Visible Personal
Characteristics Act, which became effective in July 2003, it is stated that
DNA testing should be aimed at establishing ‘the “race” of the unknown
suspect’37.

    34
       “These are men with whom the murdered Marianne Vaatstra had contact,
men who were convicted for sexual offenses in our country in the past and men
whose names were mentioned by others as a possible subject or because they were
seen around the time and place of the crime”, NRC Handelsblad, 20 December 1999.
    35
        See e.g. http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/5009/Archief/article/detail/2507398-
/2000/04/27/Geheime-DNA-test-in-zaak-Vaatstra.dhtml.
    36
       “When obtaining a sample of cellular material is not possible for serious
reasons (for example when a suspect is fiercely resisting) non-collected body ma-
terial can be used, such as a hair or saliva on a coffee cup”. https://-
www.om.nl/vaste-onderdelen/zoeken/@59953/nieuwe-dna-wetgeving/.
    37
       Article 151d: paragraph1. The prosecutor may order a DNA test aimed at
determining externally visible characteristics of the unknown suspect; Article
151d: paragraph2. The DNA test can only be aimed at establishing the sex, the
race or other externally visible characteristics designated by order in council, see
26                                                                   Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)


    Article 151d: paragraph2.
    The DNA test can only be aimed at establishing the sex, the race or other ex-
ternally visible characteristics designated by order in council (italic added).

     And that brings me to my last and maybe most explosive point: race.
Although current population genetics does not rely on a concept of race,
this much is clear from the impressive research results, biological race has
been introduced in the Dutch Criminal Code. This way geographic origin
was made into race. This in itself is a curious given in a country that does
not know race and considers itself post-racial. But it points to a much
more extensive problem which goes hand in hand with the role of current
life sciences.
     When in June 2000 the completion of the draft of the human genetic
map was announced, this map was presented as a monument of human
communality and a proof of the equality between people. We are more
than 99.9% the same, said Bill Clinton (during this high profile presenta-
tion). Ironically from that moment onwards not the communalities but
the differences, the 0.1%, became the object of research. Whether in the
field of medical genetics or behavioural studies, historical archaeology or
forensics: difference has become the prime focus and where the research
money goes into.
     With this attention to differences, and given the biologization and ge-
neticization of numerous social phenomena like behaviour, disease, origin
etc. we have invited in a classic problem back in, race38. As the common
story goes, after WOII, after a long history of racist science, we declared
race dead39. Race, as was stated in the famed UNESCO statement on
Race, had no scientific basis40. But pronouncing race dead also turned in-
to silencing race. Especially in a country like the Netherlands, the idea
prevails that we don’t do race. It is irrelevant. Nowadays, with the enor-
mous impact of the life sciences, we seem to be overtaken on all sides by
history and as social scientists we risk to be left empty-handed. How can
we make the knot which we call race researchable? And what is race?
When are differences made into race and when not?41

also the website of the Dutch Senate: https://www.eerstekamer.nl/wetsvoorstel/-
28072_dna_onderzoek_in_strafzaken.
    38
       There is a growing corpus of literature addressing the various ways in which
race has become a growing matter of concern in e.g. health care research, medical
practice, pharmaceutical research, genealogical science (Duster 2003; Abu El-Haj
2004; Fullwiley 2007; Montoya 2007; Kahn 2008; Whitmarsh and Johnes 2010;
Schramm, Skinner and Rottenburg 2012).
    39
       As has been observed race did not fade away after WOII, neither in research
nor in society (Lipphardt 2012). Yet this ideological turn was and is crucial.
    40
       See on the different Unesco Statements on Race and their politics Selcer (2012).
    41
        See for some attempts at this M’charek (2013); M’charek (2014); and
M’charek, Schramm and Skinner (2014), which is a special issue in which I to-
M’charek                                                                          27




                                                          I believe one of
                                                         the great truths
                                                         to emerge from
                                                         this triumphant
                                                       expedi6on inside
                                                     the human genome
                                                                    Is that
                                                        in gene6c terms,
                                                       all human beings,
                                                      regardless of race,
                                                            are more than
                                                              99,9 percent
                                                                 the same.
                                                       (Clinton 23 June 2000).




  Fig. 5 – American president Bill Clinton (top and middle below) together with
Genome researchers Craig Venter (below left) and Francis Collins (right) during
the presentation of the rough chart of the human genome project in June 2000.
   Sources: http://pic.biodiscover.com/files/y/25/biodiscover1369274469.-
5757490.jpg and http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/12937/-
                          title/The-Human-Genome/.


    The political question here is: how can we take biology and genetics
seriously and at the same time prevent ourselves as societies from racism?
In order to find answers to these questions I developed the RaceFaceID
project42.


gether with a number of colleagues have started to carve out possible specificities
to race in Europa.
    42
       “Race Matter: On the Absent Presence of Race in Forensic Identification”
(RaceFaceID), a five-year research project funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant.
The team consists of the following PhD students, post doc and associate research-
ers: Reanne Bleumink, Lisette Jong, Marianne Fotiadou, Lieke Wissink, Ildikó
Plajas, Roos Hopman, Alana Helberg-Proctor, Irene van Oorschot, Jeltje Stobbe,
Denitsa Gancheva. My thinking on, or rather the questions that I have started to
ponder vis a vis race are highly inspired what could be termed a version of post-
colonial STS, wherein I try to think ANT’s affinity for materiality and relationality
with postcolonial concerns with temporality, ambivalences and processes of oth-
ering. On Postcolonial STS, see Anderson (2002); Mcneil (2005); Verran (2002);
Prasad (2008); De la Cadena (2010); Lin and Law (2014).
28                                                                  Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)




                                                  RaceFaceID




                                                           Amade M’charek
                                                    University of Amsterdam
                                                       a.a.mcharek@uva.nl




       Fig. 6 – The three forensic practices that are examined in the RaceFaceID
     project: (1) genetic facial phenotyping (2) craniofacial reconstruction and
                                  (3) facial composite.


    In this project we research a number of forensic techniques with
which a face is given to an unknown suspect or victim. The project at-
tends to ways in which face-making is also involved in race-making.
Therewith it allows us to address an obvious yet overlooked question:
what is race? Not to answer this conclusively or to provide a universal an-
swer to this question. But rather to unravel what race is made to be in
practice (see M’charek 2013 for an example of this ‘race as a practice’ ap-
proach). To do so, we follow the face-making techniques around, from
Research and Development, via the forensic laboratories, the police sta-
tions, the media, to the courtroom. Rather than defining race we work
with the heuristics that we cannot know the individual without situating
the individual in a population (a group). We thus focus on the relation
between individual and population on the route from crime scene to
court and attend to moments when population is translated into race;
how that happens and with what purpose. The idea is that race is more
than a simple biological definition or an ideological interpretation of dif-
ferences. In this research we aim at developing a vocabulary and methods
with which we can study race in science and society, to gain more insight
into how race is given shape in specific practices and to develop and un-
derstanding between race and racisms.
M’charek                                                                   29
    This new research was the source of inspiration for my story here. I
took the heavy traffic between laboratory and society seriously and sub-
stantiated why circulations deserve our attention and why an anthropolo-
gy of science needs to study circulations. I made three interventions in
current academic debates on identity, context and continuity. In my ar-
gument I build on, or move away from, work developed in Anthropology,
Science and Technology Studies, Feminist Science Studies and Postcolo-
nial Studies of Science. My contribution lies in the fact that I have tried to
focus these insights on the concept of circulations. By way of rounding up
and connecting with the special issue on ‘digital circulation’ (Balbi,
Delfanti and Magaudda 2016), I will now articulate the theoretical lessons
learned on circulations.
    Movements, so Stuart Hall (1992, 293), “provoke theoretical mo-
ments”. As I was writing this address, in August 2015, I stumbled over
the important paper of Benjamin Lee and Edward LiPuma (2002) and to
my surprise their argument appeared akin to mine. In their article they set
out to move the concept of circulation beyond its traditional understand-
ing. Circulation is no longer to be understood as a transmission, a simple
movement of people, commodities, or ideas from one place to another, or
as a unidirectional relation between production and consumption. Rather
they invite us to attend to circulation as a performative event that co-
shapes humans and things as they move through space and time and it
does so in situated manners. “[C]irculation is a cultural process, with its
own forms of abstraction, evaluation, and constraint, which are created
by the interactions between specific types of circulating forms and the in-
terpretive communities built around them (Lee and LiPuma 2002, 192).
Lee and LiPuma suggest to view these structured circulations as cultures
of circulation.
    It is not difficult to understand the practice I described above, the
practice of forensic DNA, as an example of structured circulation. Yet,
although the infrastructure of forensic DNA is fairly structured, I have in
fact tried to attend to emergence and surprising movements. And it is
precisely here where I depart from Lee and LiPuma. Whereas they privi-
lege structured circulations, I suggest widening our scope and attending
to the permanency of circulations. Humans and things are permanently
on the move producing more or less durable infrastructures and changing
themselves and their environments as they move about. However as I
have shown, circulations are also actively stopped. There are physical
borders, laws, language barriers, networks that are down, etc. It is the re-
lation between flow and stops that can become more or less durable,
more or less structured. It also means that circulations become structured
precisely as to overcome contingencies and possible stops. Rather than
reducing our scope to a particular mode of capitalism (circulation-based
capitalism, as Lee and LiPuma do) or a particular infrastructure for flow
(globalisation), I suggest a more open view on circulations and what cir-
culations do. It seems to me that a focus on the relation between flow and
30                                                               Tecnoscienza – 7 (2)

stops might help us to understand better the politics of circulations.
    In the literature on circulation there is a tendency to think this con-
cept together with globalisation, to think flows in Euclidian spaces and
movements spanning large distances in short periods of time (see e.g. Ap-
padurai 1990; Lee and LiPuma 2002). The relations suggested here are
largely modernist: both space and time are envisioned as linear, suggest-
ing self-evident relations. For example in this approach it is tempting to
think the relation between the local and the global as: small versus large,
weak versus powerful and transient versus durable. However, Actor Net-
work Theory teaches us that identities are effects of network relations and
that these relations do not occupy a Euclidian space but relate topologi-
cally (see e.g. Mol and Law 1994; Law 2004). Size or power do not inhere
in entities but are performed in relations and they are performed some-
where in space in time.
    It is precisely in this vein that I have suggested that circulations enact
identities as well as contexts. For, often and again globalisation is seen as
the primary mover, the context or the scene against which significant
events take place. But if circulations of DNA help to enact context, could
we also envision ways in which circulations enact the global, rather than
the other way around? To be sure, rather than closing off or providing
the final answer about e.g. globalisation, this observation invites more
questions about circulations. It invites us to attend to the doings of circu-
lations. How do circulations materially produce what we come to know as
the global or the local, the near or far, the now or then, and the we or
them? For the issue is not how do cultures bring about circulations, but
how do circulations produce cultures.


Acknowledgement
     I am very grateful for the invitation to publish this version of my lecture in
this timely double special issue on Digital Circulation. I thank Paolo Magaudda
for his patience and guidance.
     I would like to thank the European Research Council for supporting my re-
search through an ERC Consolidator Grant (FP7-617451-RaceFaceID-Race Mat-
ter: On the Absent Presence of Race in Forensic Identification).



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M’charek                                                                           31
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