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Spectrum

Section I, ANTH 797: Race and Racism in Biological Anthropology

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

Section I features work by four students from Dr. Amy Michael’s Spring 2025 ANTH 797: Race and Racism in Biological Anthropology. This collection of research papers represents these students' semester-long research into—and critical analysis of—major themes related to the history of the field of biological anthropology: American anthropologists' engagement with the eugenics movement, the intersection of biological anthropology and the "human zoos" of the World's Fairs, the racialized history of early forensic anthropology research and methods, repatriation efforts and restorative justice in skeletal collections, and contemporary approaches to reckoning with the harmful past of our field. Gloria Bonham, in Progression of World’s Fairs and the Anthropological and Social Impact it Holds, explores the meanings and functions of World’s Fairs over time, and also evaluates the complicated legacy of anthropology’s role in the representation of cultures at these sites. As Bonham points out, these questions of observation, representation, and public exhibition are not only complex, but are ones that the discipline still grapples with. Keelan Coronati gives readers a personal and detailed historical explanation of the tangled relationship between anthropology and the field of eugenics in Heredity vs. Environment: Anthropology in Relationship to Eugenics. Through this nuanced discussion, Coronati goes far in convincing readers that eugenics is not a thing of the past, but a theory whose dangers persist in today’s world, and is therefore worthy of our engagement. In the third essay in this section, Theresa Iafolla explores the different ways in which the media reports on missing persons, particularly addressing issues of race- and class-based biases in this reporting. In Missing White Woman Syndrome: Racial Bias in Media, Law Enforcement, and Forensics, Iafolla analyzes the notion of “missing white woman syndrome.” In doing so, she unpacks the ways it can be understood across media coverage, law enforcement practices, forensic science, and public policy, ultimately calling for institutional change in the methods and approaches utilized in missing persons cases. Finally, In Separating Fact from Fiction: the Dehumanization and Fictionalization of Egyptian Mummified Remains, Arianna Lavigne asks what happens when a fictionalized version of Egyptian mummies becomes synonymous with the real culture that prepares their dead this way. Lavigne raises important questions such as, what gets lost as other cultures are dehumanized? And, what should the role of museums and educators be to counter the stereotypes and cultural assumptions being made?

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