Change of Venue. Change of Race.

“I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical anthropologist in Senegal, she says, “I take a plane to France, a seven- to eight-hour ride. My race changes as I cross the Atlantic. There, I say, ‘Je suis noire,’ and they say, ‘Oh, okay—métisse—you are mixed.’ Then I fly another six to seven hours to Senegal, and I am white. In the space of a day, I can change from African American, to métisse, to tubaab [Wolof for “white/European”]. This is not a joke, or something to laugh at, or to take lightly. It is the kind of social recognition that even two-year-olds who can barely speak understand. Tubaab,’ they say when they greet me.” —Duana Fullwiley

Race in a Genetic World,” Harvard Magazine, Volume 110, Number 5 (May-June, 2008): http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/race-in-a-genetic-world.html.

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