I truly enjoyed Professor Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture on Collecting Bodies, Bodily Collectives. Determining the identity of human beings through acts of science and experimentation are nothing but fascinating to me. Professor Mukharji’s lecture brought me back to experiences I had as a child when I would watch CSI and Law & Order on TV and dream about being a detective working through autopsy reports and what not. Professor Mukharji’s stories were extremely enticing as events that have transpired within South Asia are few and far between when compared to myths in the United States. He illustrated how India has undergone a multitude of changes in which different surveys and statistics have been individually gathered. Beginning with the Survey of India in 1767, this process ended with the Anthropological Survey in 1946. This is intended for scientists to gather better results as he exclaims that good scientists must always isolate the specific samples they are interested in. Professor Mukharji used the example of a ‘fern scientist’ and highlighted the fact that no one fern scientist is capable of studying all of the ferns in the world; instead, they must concentrate their studies and narrow their research. That is what Professor Mukharji is attempting to do with his work and his studies. By exploring bodily traces, such as blood and bones, from a given area or community, scientists can collect data and conduct studies to produce new forms of identities located in the remote past or unforeseeable future.
Initially, I asked myself why we would want or even need to do this type of research in the first place. That said, in the question and answer portion of the lecture, Professor Mukharji emphasized that a short time ago, many of the samples and studies of genetic science were outdated and henceforth inaccurate. He explained how only 130 people study for the field of genetics, and although the field has expanded, small sample sizes and single trial experiments lead to inaccurate information. He offers the idea that learning more about genetics will not answer problems of race or genetic disorders/differences, but rather improve our general understanding of where we come from and who we come from. A full consensus will never be reached, and Professor Mukharji acknowledges this point repeatedly. In response to Professor Lijiang’s question about the morality of treating/studying humans post mortem, Professor Mukharji states that you must always be conscience when designing and conducting your study. On the other hand, organizing these studies is essential to our understanding of how the world works. We must keep working to expand our definition of life, where you come from, and why you are the way you are. Professor Mukharji acknowledges the fact that there is no such thing as data that is completely void of any racial or genetic assumptions. Henceforth, it is up to people like Professor Mukharji to conduct experiments and research that enables us to see past these assumptions and understand the world for what it truly is.