Ruha Benjamin, Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Princeton University presents a discussion on November 10th called "Can the Subaltern Genome Code? Reimagining Innovation and Equity in the Era of Precision Medicine."

The talk, sponsored by the CSSD working group on Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture,  situates precision medicine within the broader big data phenomenon and examines how power and inequality shape what is known about human difference. Benjamin argues that the epistemic and normative dexterity of the field — not its strict enforcement of social hierarchy — make it powerful, problematic and, for some, profitable. She also links this to a range of contemporary issues at the nexus of data and democracy, expanding the collective imagination of what counts as relevant and meaningful to scholarship and debate on precision medicine.