Description:

 The Whiteness of Milk: The High Stakes of Lactose (In)tolerance

Until a few years ago, being lactose tolerant or intolerant seemed fairly unremarkable. You were either one or the other. However, the ability to digest milk – a trait that is associated with genetic mutation enabling the production of lactase in adults - has recently been embraced by the alt-right and dairy campaigns like "milk core" and "97Milk." Fanning this controversy of the “white milk gene” are the epic discoveries in archaeology and genetics that now provide evidence for the beginnings of dairying and the diffusion of -13.910:C>T(rs4988235) genetic mutation in prehistoric Europe. And even though experts in the hard and soft sciences decry the misuse of science, the ability to digest milk remains a persistent and real biological fact. How did lactose intolerance become settled as a fact? And where will it take us to as a matter of concern? This talk examines the “whiteness” of the dairy gene as a history of an idea, one borne out of the collaboration between different disciplines from WWII to the present. I investigate its emergence as a scientific object and trace how different actors come to demonstrate its existence empirically - from bodies, gas, genes, and artifacts to data bytes. How can a gene tolerate – in the words of Latour - so many opposite signals coming from different disciplines? In this talk, I examine how archaeologists, scientists, farmer activists, and white nationalists co-exist in this space while asking how the dairy gene places anthropology’s own legacy in an unsettled racialized future.