126 CONCLUSION
thy. I discuss the dependence of this claim on the isomorphism of bodies
and embodiments, which are understood as both uniform and unifying.
To suggest otherwise, I refer to a famous, still painful example of racialized
violence. If in some contexts, but not others, a set of dots can be perceived
as a hand, what are the factors that allow a wallet to look like a gun? Or,
more correctly, what are the factors that allow a particular body’s actions to
be read as imbued with one set of intentions (involving a wallet) rather than
another (involving a gun)? My point is not that mirror neurons should be
able to explain both readings and misreadings of mind — it is not all down
to mirror neurons, in any case. Rather, my point is that perception takes
place in worldly contexts that render automatic simulation a poor model
for intersubjective understanding. Body- minds often perceive each other
not simply as conspecifics, but as Others, whether racialized, gendered,
sexualized, classed, or nationalized. These striations are generated within
microinteractions as well as by macropolitical forces. How might they af-
fect our responses to others — not only in intellectualist or symbolic but
also deeply embodied and embrained ways? In other words, how might
bodies and meanings participate in intersubjectivity in all its complexity,
promise, and failure? Whether it is mirror neurons or some other neural
mechanism at issue, the social in the biosocial brain must be more com-
plexly understood.
My goal is not to close down discussions of biosociality, but rather to
open them up. I have no wish to prove cultural over biological explana-
tions, or to argue that social concerns trump material ones. In fact, I see
little point in reasserting the distinctions between these realms. Returning
to my discussion of kinship, it is undeniable in my view that evolutionary
adaptationist accounts ignore both the queer predilections of nature and
the diversity of kinship practices in human societies. But I find social con-
structionist accounts of kinship too empty; in denying material and fleshly
realness to heteronormative kinships, they also evacuate queer ones. Nei-
ther approach comes close to addressing the bonds that do exist between
beings with respect^ —^ that is, as both meaningful and materially real. These
bonds comprise both historically specific meanings and structures, and
materially specific transformations of embodied beings as they change each
other. The ways (both welcome and not) that sustained bonds with others