Description
Berghahn Books Identity Politics and the New Genetics Re Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging 2012 Edition by Katharina Schramm, David Skinner, Richard Rottenburg
Racial and ethnic categories have appeared in recent scientific work in novel ways and in relation to a variety of disciplines: medicine, forensics, population genetics and also developments in popular genealogy. Once again, biology is foregrounded in the discussion of human identity. Of particular importance is the preoccupation with origins and personal discovery and the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in social policy. This new genetic knowledge, expressed in technology and practice, has the potential to disrupt how race and ethnicity are debated, managed and lived. As such, this volume investigates the ways in which existing social categories are both maintained and transformed at the intersection of the natural (sciences) and the cultural (politics). The contributors include medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science and sociologists of race relations; together, they explore the new and challenging landscape where biology becomes the stuff of identity. Table of contents :- List of Illustrations and TablesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Ideas in Motion: Making Sense of Identity After DNAKatharina Schramm, David Skinner, Richard RottenburgChapter 1. 'Race' as a Social Construction in GeneticsAndrew Smart, Richard Tutton, Paul Martin, George EllisonChapter 2. Mobile Identities and Fixed Categories: Forensic DNA and the Politics of Racialised DataDavid SkinnerChapter 3. Race, Kinship and the Ambivalence of IdentityPeter WadeChapter 4. Identity, DNA, and the State in Post-Dictatorship ArgentinaNoa VaismanChapter 5. 'Do You Have Celtic, Jewish, Germanic Roots?' - Applied Swiss History Before and After DNAMarianne SommerChapter 6. Irish DNA: Making Connections and Making Distinctions in Y-Chromosome Surname StudiesCatherine NashChapter 7. Genomics en route: Ancestry, Heritage, and the Politics of Identity Across the Black AtlanticKatharina SchrammChapter 8. Biotechnological Cults of Affliction? Race, Rationality, and Enchantment in Personal Genomic HistoriesStephan PalmieNotes on ContributorsBibliographyIndex