Elise K Burton
Biographic Data
| ID | 368712 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elise K Burton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elise K |
| FAMILY NAME | Burton |
| SIGNATURE | BURTON E K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1981-930X |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Molecular Artifacts: Whiteness and the Genetics of the Ancient Dead
Ancient DNA (aDNA) studies of the human past are only the most recent version of a subfield of genetics initiated in 1934: paleoserology, which aimed to determine “blood groups of the ancient dead” from their remaining tissue or bone. This article argues that the origins of human paleoserology – and its newer incarnation as aDNA research – are deeply entangled with a specific racial debate over the purported whiteness or Blackness of the ancient …
Thank You to Our Reviewers
The history of science through the prism of race
One methodological approach to grasping a ‘big-picture’ history of modern science involves tracing the complex entanglements between scientific knowledge and the development of racism and racialized economic systems. Indeed, no historical account of any scientific field can be complete without acknowledging the role of race as an intellectual, social or economic factor. We substantiate this argument through a synthetic review of three overlapping…
Race in Circulation: Blood Banks and Forced Mobilities in the Eastern Mediterranean
The emergence of blood transfusion services after the First World War provided new venues for nationalist and racial research. This paper focuses on racial serology in the Turkish Republic during the period between the 1920s and the 1970s, with particular attention to the role of the Greek-Turkish population exchange and the political conflict over Cyprus. These events entailed mass movements of refugees and violence based on communal identities,…
Comparative globalizations: Building and dismantling genetic laboratories in Lebanon
This paper examines two moments in the globalization of human genetics, focusing on the American University of Beirut as a site of interaction between American, European and Middle Eastern scientific actors and research subjects. In the interwar period, the establishment of clinical laboratories at AUB's medical school enabled the development of an informal large-scale programme to study human heredity through anthropometry and sero-anthropology.…
Rethinking Collaboration: Medical Research and Working Relationships at the Iranian Pasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute of Iran underwent a major expansion of its research productivity and international recognition during some of the most significant events of modern Iranian history: the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, followed by the Anglo-American coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. During this period, the institute's French director, Marcel Baltazard, was embedded in a complex set of working relationships w…
A Roundtable Discussion on Collecting Demographics Data
Identifying this natal link between statistical identities and distanced control does not of course mean that we should reject statistically “enumerated identities” tout court in favor of some more “fuzzy identities.”62 To do so would be to lapse into an ahistorical fantasy of return. This is where our third key theme, difference, comes into play—difference not merely in the sense of something that is disciplined and contained but, rather, as an …
Red Crescents: Race, Genetics, and Sickle Cell Disease in the Middle East
Historical accounts of sickle cell disease tend to emphasize either its theoretical role in catalyzing the field of medical genetics or its clinical and social significance in representing the health-care disparities experienced by African Americans. This essay bridges these narratives by focusing on the discovery of sickle cells in marginalized Arabic-speaking communities of Yemen and Turkey in the 1950s. As in North America, sickle cell researc…
Narrating ethnicity and diversity in Middle Eastern national genome projects
Most Middle Eastern populations outside Israel have not been represented in Western-based international human genome sequencing efforts. In response, national-level projects have emerged throughout the Middle East to decode the Arab, Turkish and Iranian genomes. The discourses surrounding the ‘national genome’ that shape scientists’ representation of their work to local and international audiences evoke three intersecting analytics of nationalism…
Essential Collaborators: Locating Middle Eastern Geneticists in the Global Scientific Infrastructure, 1950s-1970s
In the aftermath of World War II, a new international infrastructure based on United Nations agencies took charge of coordinating global biomedical research. Through this infrastructure, European and American geneticists hoped to collect and test blood samples from human populations across the world to understand processes of human heredity and evolution and trace the historical migrations of different groups. They relied heavily on local scienti…
An Assimilating Majority?: Israeli Marriage Law and Identity in the Jewish State
Narrating ethnicity and diversity in Middle Eastern national genome projects
Most Middle Eastern populations outside Israel have not been represented in Western-based international human genome sequencing efforts. In response, national-level projects have emerged throughout the Middle East to decode the Arab, Turkish and Iranian genomes. The discourses surrounding the ‘national genome’ that shape scientists’ representation of their work to local and international audiences evoke three intersecting analytics of nationalism…
Essential Collaborators: Locating Middle Eastern Geneticists in the Global Scientific Infrastructure, 1950s-1970s
In the aftermath of World War II, a new international infrastructure based on United Nations agencies took charge of coordinating global biomedical research. Through this infrastructure, European and American geneticists hoped to collect and test blood samples from human populations across the world to understand processes of human heredity and evolution and trace the historical migrations of different groups. They relied heavily on local scienti…
A Roundtable Discussion on Collecting Demographics Data
Identifying this natal link between statistical identities and distanced control does not of course mean that we should reject statistically “enumerated identities” tout court in favor of some more “fuzzy identities.”62 To do so would be to lapse into an ahistorical fantasy of return. This is where our third key theme, difference, comes into play—difference not merely in the sense of something that is disciplined and contained but, rather, as an …
Rethinking Collaboration: Medical Research and Working Relationships at the Iranian Pasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute of Iran underwent a major expansion of its research productivity and international recognition during some of the most significant events of modern Iranian history: the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, followed by the Anglo-American coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. During this period, the institute's French director, Marcel Baltazard, was embedded in a complex set of working relationships w…
Red Crescents: Race, Genetics, and Sickle Cell Disease in the Middle East
Historical accounts of sickle cell disease tend to emphasize either its theoretical role in catalyzing the field of medical genetics or its clinical and social significance in representing the health-care disparities experienced by African Americans. This essay bridges these narratives by focusing on the discovery of sickle cells in marginalized Arabic-speaking communities of Yemen and Turkey in the 1950s. As in North America, sickle cell researc…
An Assimilating Majority?: Israeli Marriage Law and Identity in the Jewish State
Narrating ethnicity and diversity in Middle Eastern national genome projects
Most Middle Eastern populations outside Israel have not been represented in Western-based international human genome sequencing efforts. In response, national-level projects have emerged throughout the Middle East to decode the Arab, Turkish and Iranian genomes. The discourses surrounding the ‘national genome’ that shape scientists’ representation of their work to local and international audiences evoke three intersecting analytics of nationalism…
Essential Collaborators: Locating Middle Eastern Geneticists in the Global Scientific Infrastructure, 1950s-1970s
In the aftermath of World War II, a new international infrastructure based on United Nations agencies took charge of coordinating global biomedical research. Through this infrastructure, European and American geneticists hoped to collect and test blood samples from human populations across the world to understand processes of human heredity and evolution and trace the historical migrations of different groups. They relied heavily on local scienti…
Red Crescents: Race, Genetics, and Sickle Cell Disease in the Middle East
Historical accounts of sickle cell disease tend to emphasize either its theoretical role in catalyzing the field of medical genetics or its clinical and social significance in representing the health-care disparities experienced by African Americans. This essay bridges these narratives by focusing on the discovery of sickle cells in marginalized Arabic-speaking communities of Yemen and Turkey in the 1950s. As in North America, sickle cell researc…
A Roundtable Discussion on Collecting Demographics Data
Identifying this natal link between statistical identities and distanced control does not of course mean that we should reject statistically “enumerated identities” tout court in favor of some more “fuzzy identities.”62 To do so would be to lapse into an ahistorical fantasy of return. This is where our third key theme, difference, comes into play—difference not merely in the sense of something that is disciplined and contained but, rather, as an …
Rethinking Collaboration: Medical Research and Working Relationships at the Iranian Pasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute of Iran underwent a major expansion of its research productivity and international recognition during some of the most significant events of modern Iranian history: the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, followed by the Anglo-American coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. During this period, the institute's French director, Marcel Baltazard, was embedded in a complex set of working relationships w…
Race in Circulation: Blood Banks and Forced Mobilities in the Eastern Mediterranean
The emergence of blood transfusion services after the First World War provided new venues for nationalist and racial research. This paper focuses on racial serology in the Turkish Republic during the period between the 1920s and the 1970s, with particular attention to the role of the Greek-Turkish population exchange and the political conflict over Cyprus. These events entailed mass movements of refugees and violence based on communal identities,…
Comparative globalizations: Building and dismantling genetic laboratories in Lebanon
This paper examines two moments in the globalization of human genetics, focusing on the American University of Beirut as a site of interaction between American, European and Middle Eastern scientific actors and research subjects. In the interwar period, the establishment of clinical laboratories at AUB's medical school enabled the development of an informal large-scale programme to study human heredity through anthropometry and sero-anthropology.…
The history of science through the prism of race
One methodological approach to grasping a ‘big-picture’ history of modern science involves tracing the complex entanglements between scientific knowledge and the development of racism and racialized economic systems. Indeed, no historical account of any scientific field can be complete without acknowledging the role of race as an intellectual, social or economic factor. We substantiate this argument through a synthetic review of three overlapping…
Molecular Artifacts: Whiteness and the Genetics of the Ancient Dead
Ancient DNA (aDNA) studies of the human past are only the most recent version of a subfield of genetics initiated in 1934: paleoserology, which aimed to determine “blood groups of the ancient dead” from their remaining tissue or bone. This article argues that the origins of human paleoserology – and its newer incarnation as aDNA research – are deeply entangled with a specific racial debate over the purported whiteness or Blackness of the ancient …
Thank You to Our Reviewers
Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Race, Genetics, and Society (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · History (4 works) · History of Science and Medicine (4 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (3 works) · Law (3 works)