Genetic Ancestry Testing Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Family studies, Genealogy, Heritage Studies, Genetic Algorithms

Relying on a populace well-educated in family history based in ancestral genealogy, a robust national genomics sector has developed in Québec over the past decade-and-a-half. The same period roughly coincides with a fourfold increase in the number of individuals and organizations in the region self-identifying with a mixed-race form of indigeneity that is counter to existing Indigenous understandings of kinship and citizenship. This paper examines how recent efforts by genetic scientists, working on a multi-year research project on the 'diversity' of the Québec gene pool, intervene in complex settler-Indigenous relations by redefining indigeneity according to the logics of 'Native American DNA'. Specifically, I demonstrate how genetic scientists mobilize genes associated with Indigenous peoples in ways that support regional efforts to govern settler-Indigenous relations in favour of otherwise white settler claims to Indigenous lands.

- by Darryl Leroux
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- Genetics, Canadian Studies, Indigenous Studies, Genealogy

The rapid growth of genetic ancestry testing has brought concerns that these tests will transform consumers' racial and ethnic identities, producing " geneticized " identities determined by genetic knowledge. Drawing on 100 qualitative interviews with White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, and Native Americans, we develop the genetic options theory to account for how genetic ancestry tests influence consumers' ethnic and racial identities. It maintains that consumers do not accept the tests' results as given, but choose selectively from the estimates according to two mechanisms: their identity aspirations and social appraisals. Yet consumers' prior racialization also influences their identity aspirations; White respondents aspired to new identities more readily and in substantively different ways. Our findings suggest that genetic ancestry testing can reinforce race privilege among those who already experience it.

- by Wendy Roth and +1
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- Race and Ethnicity, Identity, mtDNA, Genetic Ancestry Testing

Starting with the apparatus of DNA-testing that produces and reifies ethnoracial differences and identities, this paper articulates two layers of analysis. The larger implications of this analysis are to be understood in the articulation between these two layers. The first layer regards the neoliberal and neocolonial construction of an ethno-subject anchored in the racialization of DNA. This racialization consists of two steps: First, race is naturalized and biologized anew through the technological procedure of DNA decoding and data comparison. Second, race is reculturalized through its substitution with “ethnicity”. This step enables the neutralization of the politically anti-liberal connotations of the rebiologization of race. The second layer of our analysis connects this rebiologization of race to neocolonial processes of value extraction and biopolitical techniques of surveillance. We attend to the implications of these developments by interrogating the directions taken by DNA datafication both in terms of surveying and surveilling. At center stage is the question of the modulation of the individual’s access—to countries and services—enabled by their datafication. We show that the question of access is the question of how boundaries are drawn, who draws them, and how porous they are depending on the characteristics of the individual’s biological data.

Genetic ancestry is seen as an alternative to the problematic concept of race and is positioned against abusive racist and nationalist perspectives. The concept of genetic ancestry is nevertheless not free of racial categorisation. Increasingly, it is becoming an integral part of identity politics. Genetic ancestry is promoted as a way to attribute identity and visibility to marginalised groups but is also rejected as a form of biocolonialism. In xenophobic and racist discourses of right-wing groups, the concept has found a fertile ground. The field of genetics is partly to blame for this, since it opens the door to problematic identity discourses through a careless use of archaeological, ethnic and genetic categories.

- by Stefan Burmeister
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- Genetics, Race and Racism, Migration Studies, Next generation sequencing
- by Victoria M Massie
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- Anthropology, Racialization, Feminist Anthropology, African Ancestry

This thesis presents the results of seven commercialized DNA ancestry tests that are all available to the public, for under $400 Canadian dollars each. This research is conducted to explore the use of commercialized DNA ancestry tests. The results from each test are compared in order to determine what they are able to tell a customer. The tests used are not the only tests available, but are chosen because of their popularity, price, and what they claim to be able to report to their customer. I find the databases that the tests include online to ‘find relatives’, who are other customers having the same Haplogroup or another matching genetic identifier, to be the most troublesome aspect of the results. Specifically, it is important for the public to clearly understand that these tests are not as conclusive as they are advertised to be, so that they are not misled in thinking that the tests have the potential to show things with certainty that they cannot.

- by Debbie Kennett and +1
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- Media Studies, Genealogy, Academic Freedom, Pseudoscience

In Israel, several hundred thousand citizens form a minority group that wishes to be acknowledged as Jewish by the state authorities. Most of them immigrated from the former Soviet Union and cannot provide sufficient evidence of their maternal ancestors’ affiliation with a Jewish community. This has a direct impact on their civil rights. Based on a scientific research article on matrilineal genetic markers among Eastern and Central European Jews, the rabbinical dean of an institute for advanced Jewish studies in Jerusalem proposed to accept, under certain conditions, the presence of specific genetic markers as legal proof of “Jewishness.” Genetic testing here is meant to become a tool for empowerment and (re)claiming Jewish status. This case raises many questions concerning a biological understanding of Judaism and shows how genetic ancestry testing could be used to uphold the religious orthodox narrative.

- by Noa Sophie Kohler
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- Jewish Studies, Immigration, Political Science, Identity politics

Critical interpersonal and family communication (CIFC) contributes a context and lens for analyzing the intersections of race, communication, and genetic ancestry tests (GATs). This essay presents a discourse analysis of GAT reveal videos by Black content creators. Interpersonal communication-between the people in the videos and between them and online audiences-is a vehicle through which people narrate into meaning complex ideas of genetics and race. Results of this analysis show that Black content creators situate genetic ancestry within ongoing communication about identity. The videos work to "prove" Blackness and mark the significance of naming the self, often by conflating ideas of Blackness and genetic ancestry. CIFC as an analytic uncovers the paradox in which GAT discourse is both liberating and oppressive within relational spheres.

Conducting genetics-related research with populations that have historically experienced considerable harm and little benefit from genetics research poses unique challenges for understanding community-based perceptions of new genetic
technologies. This article identifies challenges and strategies for collecting qualitative data on the perceptions of direct-to-consumer (DTC) Genetic Ancestry tests (GAT) among diverse Indigenous communities. Based on a 3-year project related
to perceptions, attitudes, and values associated with genetic ancestry testing among diverse Indigenous communities in Oklahoma, the engagement process revealed specific opportunities to improve the process of qualitative data collection
related to GAT, and more broadly, to conduct genetics-related research with Indigenous communities in culturally and methodologically appropriate ways. Priority areas include issues related to participant recruitment and tribal advisory boards, challenges of self-identification as a recruitment mechanism, and the necessity of including Indigenous researchers in all aspects of the research process.

This article contributes to discussions of methodology in gender studies by examining narrative analysis as a feminist method. Using direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry services as a case study, the author discusses the potential of narrative analysis in interrogating complex cultural phenomena. The analysis focuses on the commercial website of the UK-based genetics company Oxford Ancestors, which the author situates at the intersection of the cultural narratives of commercialization, scientific advance and personal quest. By interrogating the mutual embeddedness of these narratives, the author demonstrates how narrative analysis moves across structure and context capturing the processes through which facts about gender come into being. The author suggests that this focus on the tension between the abstract and the specific in cultural phenomena is what makes narrative analysis a particularly effective tool for feminist cultural analysis.

Recent ‘new materialist’ readings of evolution by such feminists as Elizabeth Grosz, Claire Colebrook, Luciana Parisi, Susan Oyama and Myra Hird have provided important insights on the openness of evolutionary processes and the emergence of difference by focusing on evolution as a temporal dynamic. Building on Darwin's observations on geographical variation, this article highlights the importance of viewing evolution as not only temporal but also spatial. For this purpose, the article turns to population genetics and its practice of mapping the early human diaspora. The article identifies a spatiotemporal dynamic of evolutionary emergence that posits gender, sexuality and race as ontologically mutually constitutive, as well as shows that such ontology is inseparable from the techniques and technologies that study it. The article argues that this mutual embeddedness of ontology and epistemology provides a site where both the limits and potential of evolutionary emergence may be examined and negotiated.

- by Venla Oikkonen
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- Cultural Studies, Geography, Human Geography, Gender Studies

Direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry testing is a new and growing industry that has gained widespread media coverage and public interest. Its scientific base is in the fields of population and evolutionary genetics and it has benefitted considerably from recent advances in rapid and cost-effective DNA typing technologies. There is a considerable body of scientific literature on the use of genetic data to make inferences about human population history, although publications on inferring the ancestry of specific individuals are rarer. Population geneticists have questioned the scientific validity of some population history inference approaches, particularly those of a more interpretative nature. These controversies have spilled over into commercial genetic ancestry testing, with some companies making sensational claims about their products. One such company-BritainsDNA-made a number of dubious claims both directly to its customers and in the media. Here we outline our scientific concerns, document the exchanges between us, BritainsDNA and the BBC, and discuss the issues raised about media promotion of commercial enterprises, academic freedom of expression, science and pseudoscience and the genetic ancestry testing industry. We provide a detailed account of this case as a resource for historians and sociologists of science, and to shape public understanding, media reporting and scientific scrutiny of the commercial use of population and evolutionary genetics.

- by Adrian Timpson and +1
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- Media Studies, Academic Freedom, Pseudoscience, Genetic Genealogy

The phenomenon of widespread genetic ancestry testing has raised questions about its social impact, particularly on issues of race. Some accounts suggest testing can promote bridging social capital-connections between racial groups. In this multi-method paper, we ask whether (1) taking genetic ancestry tests (GATs) and (2) receiving results of African, Asian, or Native American ancestry increases network racial diversity for White Americans. We use a randomized controlled trial of 802 White, non-Hispanic Americans, half of whom received GATs. Unexpected findings show that test-takers' network racial diversity decreases after testing. Using 58 follow-up interviews, we develop and test a possible theory, finding initial evidence that test-takers' network racial diversity declines because they reconsider their racial appraisals of others in their networks.

- by Rochelle R. Côté
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- Social Networks, Homophily, Racial Interactions, Bridging Social Capital

In Israel, several hundred thousand citizens form a minority group that wishes to be acknowledged as Jewish by the state authorities. Most of them immigrated from the former Soviet Union and cannot provide sufficient evidence of their maternal ancestors' affiliation with a Jewish community. This has a direct impact on their civil rights. Based on a scientific research article on matrilineal genetic markers among Eastern and Central European Jews, the rabbinical dean of an institute for advanced Jewish studies in Jerusalem proposed to accept, under certain conditions, the presence of specific genetic markers as legal proof of "Jewishness." Genetic testing here is meant to become a tool for empowerment and (re)claiming Jewish status. This case raises many questions concerning a biological understanding of Judaism and shows how genetic ancestry testing could be used to uphold the religious orthodox narrative. Die Diskussion um Gentests als Nachweis jüdischer Identität in ...

- by Noa-Sophie Kohler
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- Jewish Studies, Political Science, Identity politics, Jewish History

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