Technoscientific Musings at WUSTL

It is interesting to read the case studies in these papers, and see all the different motivations that people have to get genetic ancestry testing. In “The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing”, Bolnick et al identifies these reasons as hoping “to identify biological relatives, to validate genealogical records, [to fill in gaps in family histories, and to find a connection to specific groups or places]”. Bardill and Tallbear also elucidated the motivation to find Native American ancestry. Before these readings, I personally did not see the point of getting ancestry testing, because I thought that there is little to gain from knowing your ancestry. Like Bolnick et al said that many scientists thought, I thought of genetic ancestry as recreational. I think there’s this stereotype of people who get genetic ancestry as those who introduce themselves as “40% Irish, 45% Polish, 14% Swiss, 1% Native American! So diverse wow” and everyone rolls their eyes. However, it can be seen in Bardill and Tallbear’s papers that the technology has very real consequences.

First off, there’s the issue that genetic ancestry tests are much less accurate than commercialized, due to the difficulty of tracking the movement of human migration and aligning that with the genetic markers. Tallbear asserts that DNA tests “compel us to conflate genetic ancestry with … identity categories but these categories are embedded in one another and all have been shaped by colonialism.” Colonialism has delineated people’s ethnicities and identities, and are often meaningless except as a label. However, because of the cultural weight of acquiring a label and the inaccuracy of the technology, the results are much more problematic than they seem. It’s interesting how we let a genetic report define ourselves more than ourselves. I think in this way, it’s another example of how in our research driven society, we give science more authority than anything else.

In terms of infrastructure and politics though, it is important for those looking for Native American descent to attain their genetic ancestry. For example, those who wish to be part of Native American tribes must prove their ancestry with a genetic test. Another part of Bardill’s paper I thought interesting was the ownership of Native American DNA and sacredness of Native American gravesites. I thought the idea of ownership of the DNA information lying with the Native American community, or even members of the family, was really reminiscent of the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, which is about cells of Henrietta Lacks, which was used in millions of research studies due to its unique properties and was extremely important in developing many technologies, yet her family was still extremely poor. The idea of economizing and possession of your own information and DNA illustrates the budding conflict of privacy and ownership.