Remediating Viking Origins: Genetic Code as Archival Memory of the Remote Past (original) (raw)

Remediating Viking origins: genetic code as archival memory of the remote past (pre-print version)

2013

This article introduces some early data from the Leverhulme Trust-funded research programme, 'The Impact of the Diasporas on the Making of Britain: evidence, memories, inventions'. One of the interdisciplinary foci of the programme, which incorporates insights from genetics, history, archaeology, linguistics and social psychology, is to investigate how genetic evidence of ancestry is incorporated into identity narratives. In particular, we investigate how 'applied genetic history' shapes individual and familial narratives, which are then situated within macro-narratives of the nation and collective memories of immigration and indigenism. It is argued that the construction of genetic evidence as a 'gold standard' about 'where you really come from' involves a remediation of cultural and archival memory, in the construction of a 'usable past'. This article is based on initial questionnaire data from a preliminary study of those attending DNA collection sessions in northern England. It presents some early indicators of the perceived importance of being of Viking descent among participants, notes some emerging patterns and considers the implications for contemporary debates on migration, belonging and local and national identity.

Becoming a Viking: DNA testing, genetic ancestry and placeholder identity

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2015

A consensus has developed among social and biological scientists around the problematic nature of genetic ancestry testing, specifically that its popularity will lead to greater genetic essentialism in social identities. Many of these arguments assume a relatively uncritical engagement with DNA, under 'high-stakes' conditions. We suggest that in a biosocial society, more pervasive 'low-stakes' engagement is more likely. Through qualitative interviews with participants in a study of the genetic legacy of the Vikings in Northern England, we investigate how genetic ancestry results are discursively worked through. The identities formed in 'becoming a Viking' through DNA are characterised by fluidity and reflexivity, rather than essentialism. DNA results are woven into a wider narrative of selfhood relating to the past, the value of which lies in its potential to be passed on within families. While not unproblematic, the relatively banal nature of such narratives within contemporary society is characteristic of the 'biosociable'.

I am a Viking! DNA, popular culture and the construction of geneticized identity

New Genetics and Society, 2021

In this article, we analyze how genetic genealogy reshapes popular notions of historical identity, as it facilitates a genetically informed understanding of ethnicity and ancestry. Drawing on interviews with Swedish, British and American individuals who have employed genetic ancestry tests (GATs) to prove ancestral connections to Vikings, we explore how the desire to “be a Viking” is articulated through a convergence of pre-existing discourses around Vikings and DNA. By combining signs from genetic science and popular depictions of Vikings, our interviewees create a new discourse of geneticized Viking identity. In this new discourse, socio-historically constructed ideas about Vikings are naturalized as the innate qualities of individuals who possess a certain genetic composition. Images of “the Viking” once created for political, cultural or commercial purposes are revived in new embodied forms and can start to circulate in new social contexts, where they, by association, appear to be confirmed by genetical science.

REV Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland. Sykes, Bryan

Reviewed in the CSANA Newsletter, Samhain, 2007 25.1; NB: for better explanations of the various DNA tests, see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/gee/molecular-and-cultural-evolution-lab/genetic-ancestry-tests. My review of Sykes' book did not include discussion of autosomal DNA testing--this test can, with limits, reveal genetic history for both parents.

With víkingr into the Identity Trap: When Historiographical Actors Get a Life of Their Own

2017

As the field of genetic history has grown, academic interest in migration, peoples and ethnic identities has also grown apace. The people of the British Isles have been a focus of research in this area. Specifically, researchers have been fishing for Vikings in the gene pool. My paper begins, therefore, with some brief remarks on the etymology of the term »Viking«, its historical usage and the reception of Vikings in modern times. I address practices of naming as well as the role of romanticization and mythologization as constituents of the popular image of »the Vikings«. The discussion makes it apparent that the term »Viking« has a wide variety of associations and that behind the shared designation, which functions as a kind of semantic shorthand, lie many relationships that have yet to be studied. For that reason, in a second step, this paper outlines what are, in some cases, the greatly diverging conceptualizations of time, space, mobility and identity on which archaeological and genetic interpretations are based. I discuss in particular the problem posed by the essentialization of archaeological subjects as well as the »naturalization« of protagonists of historiographical narratives and their equation with historical actors. Finally, I address the dangers associated with identity politics, which go on both outside the academic discourse and within academia itself. Our duty now is to steer clear of mere battles over the prerogatives of interpretation. Instead, we must cultivate academic and political reflexivity, as well as mutual acceptance. Only by doing so will we be able to explore questions – and they are important questions – concerning the constitution and historicization of identities, interactions among migrations, mobility and identity, and about the relationships between biological and social reproduction.

Present pasts in the archaeology of genetics, identity, and migration in Europe: a critical essay

World Archaeology, 2019

In this essay, we interrogate how aDNA analyses have been blended with the study of migrations in European prehistory. Genetic research into ancient populations has given archaeologists and geneticists a new and rich data-set that sparks media coverage and public fascination. Yet far right wing and racist political activists also report on and repeat the results of archaeogenetic studies because it bolsters their image of ‘Fortress Europe’ under threat from biologically distinct non-Europeans. We worry about the lack of action, even discussion, we perceive among archaeologists and archaeogeneticists faced with this ugly appropriation of their research. In order to address these concerns, we have taken a deliberately provocative style. Even as we realise that the politically questionable interpretive implications of aDNA research are most likely unintended, we strongly believe that we must acknowledge their power before we can ameliorate our approach.

The genomic imaginary: Genealogical heritage and the shaping of bioconvergent identities

MediaTropes, 2015

In the twenty-first century, the advent of biomedicine has seen genealogy become geneticized, technologized and commodified. Critiquing the epistemological claims of genetic genealogy and the uses to which genetic genealogy is put, this article traces the revelatory, affective and performative aspects of genetic genealogy as mediated spectacle. It explores how, and with what consequences, genetic genealogy reconfigures kinship in technologized form, reproducing familiar social classifications and taxonomies of 'race' alongside bioconvergent identities and subjectivities, on the basis of the significance of heritage for individual and collective identifications. Finally, it theorises bioconvergence as a process based on competing yet interdependent truth-claims, creating subject positions, identities and communities, which subsume the socio-cultural into the biological.

From Trondheim to Perthshire: A Macnaughtan DNA Odyssey

2019

Like many people these days, I decided to trace my ancestral genetic legacy through a DNA test. The results were quite revelatory, revealing an entirely different genetic background than I had always supposed. This article analyzes how this new genetic background may have developed over the last 1000 years.