Abstract
Drawing on a study of the recently adjudicated Milica van Doorn case, this chapter offers a discussion of the multiple ways racial differences are enacted in forensic and legal practices of identification. This murder and rape case, we suggest, is especially enlightening, as the (unknown) suspect’s ‘Turkishness’ came to be enacted in different ways throughout the criminal investigation. In this chapter, we zoom in on different technologies of enacting the suspect’s ‘Turkishness’, particularly emphasising technologies ranging from witness reports to familial DNA searching. As such, this chapter contributes to the theorisation of the way forensic technologies enact multiple and not necessarily commensurable collectives in the search for an individual suspect. Analysing the versions of collectives and their mobilisation in this case, this contribution zooms in on the multiplicity of difference, challenging the reader to disentangle (racial) classifications in specific practices in order to hold on to their never-quite-settled, never-quite-singular character.
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Notes
- 1.
Because the Milica van Doorn case is currently on appeal, some crucial actors involved in the case—particularly judges and prosecutors—could not be expected at this time to talk about the specifics of the case. However, as the court ‘speaks through its verdicts’, the research team made extensive use of the verdict as it was published on the website of the Dutch judiciary.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the European Research Council (ERC) for supporting this research through an ERC-Consolidator Grant (fp7–617451-RaceFaceid-Race Matter: On the Absent Presence of Race in Forensic Identification). (RaceFaceID, PI: Prof. A. M’charek).
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van Oorschot, I., M’charek, A. (2022). Un/Doing Race: On Technology, Individuals, and Collectives in Forensic Practice. In: Bruun, M.H., et al. The Palgrave Handbook of the Anthropology of Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7084-8_20
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