This article places the current high-profile and controversial scientific project that I call ‘genetic ethnology’ within the same two-century tradition of biologically classifying modern peoples as pre-1945 race anthropology. Similarities in how these two biological projects have combined political and scientific agendas raise questions about the liberalism of genetics and stimulate concerns that genetic constructions of human difference might revive a politics of hate, division and hierarchy. The present article however goes beyond existing work that links modern genetics with race anthropology. It systematically compares their many similar practices and organisational features, showing that both projects were political-scientific syntheses. Studying how the origins, geography, filiations, ‘travels and encounters of our ancestors’ affect ‘current genetic variation’, both seem to have responded to a continuous public demand for biologists to explain the histories of politically significant peoples and give them a scientific basis. I challenge habitual contrasts between apolitical scientific genetics and racist pseudoscience and use race anthropology as a parable for how, in the era of Brexit and Trump, right-wing identity politics might infect genetic ethnology. I argue however that although biology-based identities carry risks of essentialism and determinism, the practices and organisation of classification pose greater political dangers.

本文将当前被我称为“遗传人种学”的备受争议的科学项目与两个世纪以来将现代人生物学分类为1945年以前的种族人类学的传统相提并论。这两个生物学项目如何将政治和科学议程结合在一起的相似之处引发了对遗传学自由主义的质疑，并引发了人们对人类差异的遗传构造可能会复兴仇恨，分裂和等级制政治的担忧。然而，本文超出了将现代遗传学与种族人类学联系起来的现有工作。它系统地比较了他们的许多类似做法和组织特征，表明这两个项目都是政治科学的综合。研究起源，地理，血统，“祖先的旅行和相遇”影响了“当前的遗传变异”，两者似乎都满足了公众对生物学家不断解释政治上具有重要意义的民族的历史并为其提供科学依据的需求。我挑战非政治科学遗传学与种族主义伪科学之间的习惯对比，并使用种族人类学作为比喻，以证明在英国退欧和特朗普时代，右翼身份政治可能会如何影响遗传民族学。但是，我认为尽管基于生物学的身份带有本质主义和决定论的风险，但分类的实践和组织却带来了更大的政治危险。我挑战非政治科学遗传学与种族主义伪科学之间的习惯对比，并使用种族人类学作为比喻，以证明在英国退欧和特朗普时代，右翼身份政治可能会如何影响遗传民族学。但是，我认为尽管基于生物学的身份带有本质主义和决定论的风险，但分类的实践和组织却带来了更大的政治危险。我挑战非政治科学遗传学与种族主义伪科学之间的习惯对比，并使用种族人类学作为比喻，以证明在英国退欧和特朗普时代，右翼身份政治可能会如何影响遗传民族学。但是，我认为尽管基于生物学的身份带有本质主义和决定论的风险，但分类的实践和组织却带来了更大的政治危险。