Session 6: Technologies of Repair
A.
Notes on lab ethnography
a.
Deadline reminder: 11:59 P.M. on March 1
b.
Series of deeper analysis of data; develop
concrete thesis
c.
Double Blind Peer-Review Process
d.
Manuscript review
e.
Peer Review Due March 8
f.
Final Version Due March 28
i. You
will be graded based on your response to feedback
1.
You can justify deviations from feedback
ii. Submit
cover letter detailing response to feedback
B.
Outline for the day
a.
Pick up on our discussion on social uses of DNA
i. Last
week we were critical of DNA testing
b.
Shift to Forensic technologies
c.
Bosnian context
d.
Genre of the Ethnography
C.
Social uses of DNA: Types of Genetic Ancestry
Tests
a.
Mitochondrial DNA: maternally-inherited
i. Think:
essentially sampling one ancestor per generation
ii. Excludes
vast majority
b.
Y-chromosome: paternally-inherited
i. Examine
SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms)
c.
Autosomal: 22 autosome pairs
i. Most
expensive, gold standard
d.
Do we focus on what’s similar or what’s
different?
e.
What claims can results make?
f.
Reference groups are composed of current-day
populations
i. Doesn’t
take into account migration, gene flow
ii. Questionable
accuracy of claim that you a descendant of a given region
D.
Issue of partial genealogy
a.
Song family tree
i. Only
patrilineal descent recorded
b.
Motivation to seek out ancestry test…to fill in
the gaps
E.
Direct-to-consumer advertising for genetic
testing
a.
Advertising bad science?
F.
Emergence of online “identity test”
a.
BuzzFeed which thing are you?
b.
Myers Briggs
c.
People have desire to be classified
d.
US context
i. Wanting
to know where we come from
ii. History
of displacement: we have lost some of that knowledge
G.
Note: markers for health risks
a.
FDA prohibited this due to lack of credibility à more clinical testing à re-offered by 23 and
Me
H.
DNA Fingerprinting
a.
Alec Jeffrey’s developed process
i. Restriction
enzymes cut enzymes at specific points
ii. Picks
out non-coding fragments
1.
Variable number of tandem repeats
2.
Highly polymorphic (vary highly from person to
person)
iii. RFLP
(restriction fragment length polymorphism)
1.
If RFLPs are different lengths, they cannot have
come from the same person
b.
Pitchfork Double Rape-murder investigation
(1983, 86)
i. Semen
sample connected two murders
ii. Local
boy confessed under police sampling
1.
DNA proved him innocent
iii. All
5000 males in area required to give samples for DNA testing
1.
Person who refused to give samples was guilty
I.
OJ Simpson Trial
a.
“most publicized criminal trial in American
history”
b.
Introduced pubic to DNA testing
i. Issues
in laboratory mishaps
c.
Acquitted partially due to laboratory mishaps
J.
Modified Test
a.
Impractical to use RFLP analysis for missing
persons
i. No
current samples
ii. Too
many steps
b.
Short Tandem repeat analysis
i. Favored
method of forensic lab
ii. Use
PCR to amplify even tiny pieces of DNA
iii. Commercially
available kit: measures at 6 loci
K.
To Know Where He Lies
a.
Actor-network-theory
i. Reliance
on community to support use of technology, acknowledge truth of results
b.
Sarah Wagner
i. Associated
professor of anthropology George Washington U
ii. Peace
Corps volunteer in Hungary, worked with Bosnian refugees
iii. She
was initially interested in Bosnian resettlement
1.
Returned to same houses, different experiences
2.
Male relatives missing, no definitive answers
iv. Perhaps
has a more policy-driven results
v. Acknowledgments
Section of book (revealing about network)
c.
Bosnian Context
i. Disintegration
of Yugoslavia began in 1990’s
1.
Croatia and Bosnia declare independence à armed conflict with
the Serb-dominated army
2.
International community failed to safeguard
public
ii. Post-war
Bosnia: Bosnia Serb Republic and Muslim Croat Federation
1.
Cycling government
2.
Evenly divided
L.
Ethnographic Conventions
a.
What is ethnography?
i. Descriptive
1.
Form of selection…you are choosing what you
think is important
2.
Even observation isn’t purely objective
ii. Framework,
perhaps an argument
iii. Generalization
iv. Gap
between what you experience and what you report
M.
Maya: Discussant
a.
Review of Ch. 1 and 2 (relevant to read of 3 and
4)
i. Identity
= techno-scientific + family experience + community recognition
1.
Wagner follows this pattern to discuss
ii. Claim:
identification as identity?
b.
Technology integral for reconciliation
c.
International interventions
i. Due
to destroyed gov’t infrastructure
d.
Gendered Dynamic: women remain, men were
killed/missing
e.
Secondary graves as technology
f.
Identification of grave sites as technology
g.
DNA testing process as erasing identity?
i. Support
1.
Reduces individual to barcode
2.
Regain identity only after connecting with
family
3.
Purposeful process of removing ethnic identity
from sample during evaluation
ii. Counter-argument
1.
Identities as context-dependent
a.
Knorr cetina concept of transformation
2.
Laboratory as a separate space
a.
Lack of public knowledge of what DNA is
b.
Extract data à
return to community
h.
Emotional trauma
i. Repeat,
relieve memories of genocide
ii. Does
this information really repair?
i.
“Missing” meaning
i. Desire
for location, body?
ii. Desire
for information to fill in narrative?
1.
Ethics of forcing knowledge
j.
Wagner situates herself within the scientific
community
i. Takes
on their motives
ii. Doesn’t
thoroughly capture motivations of locals
k.
Making the dead count
i. Demanding
reparations
ii. Demanding
response
l.
Why is
this DNA approach being used here and not in other situations of genocide?
i. International
response to initial failure
ii. Sense
of relation to white, European victims
iii. Response
to conflicting narratives
iv. Creation
of market
1.
technology was developed for this specific
situation
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