Genetics, Identity, and the Anthropology of Essentialism Author(s): Paul Brodwin Source: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 75, No.

2, (Spring, 2002), pp. 323-330 Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3318263 Accessed: 15/08/2008 23:49
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SOCIAL THOUGHTAND COMMENTARY

and the Identity, of Anthropology Essentialism
By Paul Brodwin
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Genetics,

or several decades, anthropology has participated in the general deconstruction of "identity" as a stable object of scholarly inquiry. The notion that individuals craft their identity through social performances, and hence that their identity is not a fixed essence, fundamentally drives current research into gender and sexuality. The notion that collective identity emerges out of political struggle and compromise underlies contemporary studies of race, ethnicity and nationalism. The anti-essentialist mood of today's anthropology fits with wider currents in philosophy (e.g., critiques of the autonomous, self-sustaining subject within Western metaphysics) as well as feminism and cultural studies (e.g., examination of the unconscious aspects of identity formation and the political resistance enabled by multiple and hybrid identities) (see Hall and Du Gay 1996, McRobbie 1994). Outside the academy, however, and to the dismay of anthropologists who fancy themselves as the cultural avant-garde, essentialist identities grow ever more powerful and seductive. New genetic knowledge, for example, adds the cachet of objective science to the notion that one's identity is an inborn, natural, and unalterable quality. Rapid advances in sequencing and analyzing the human genome have strengthened essentialist thinking about identity in 323

AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY ESSENTIALISM OF IDENTITY, GENETICS,

Americansociety and elsewhere, and anthropologistscan help elucidate what is at stake. Emerginggenetic knowledge thus has the potential to transformconteminporarynotions of social coherence and group identity.I am the co-principal vestigator of an interdisciplinary group pursuing this topic, funded by a multi-year grantfrom the NationalHumanGenome ResearchInstitutethrough Our its programon Ethical,Legaland SocialImplications (ELSI). researchteam, and ethnic studies specialists, is comprising leading bioethicists, geneticists, for and buildinga common vocabulary conceptualframework the effectsof curand collectiveidentity,and hence the rent-daygeneticson notionsof individual fundamental basis for social connection. As Whyis this a compellingquestion for anthropology? genetic technologies and move out of researchlaboratories into publiclife, there ariseenormousdebates about their proper use and interpretation(see Brodwin2000). The ramifyingdebates about genetic technologies(whichappear in courtcases, internet sites, articlesand books)are driven by largerquestions about inclusionand di(2000) have versityin Americansociety,as RaynaRapp(1999)and KajaFinkler demonstrated for genetic testing and predictive diagnosis. Not surprisingly, contemporarydebates over claims of identity (who I am, fundamentally)and of social connection (who I belong with, fundamentally)have very high stakes. in the Moreover, meaning of the "fundamental," that last sentence, changes in the presence of genetic evidence. Forexample,tracingyourancestry-via a patternof particular alleles,or mutations on the Y chromosome or in mitochondrialDNA-has become not just a laboratorytechnique, but a political act. Who in our society requests this sort of DNAanalysis,and who providesit? Once people learn the results,who controlswhat those resultsmean? It is no longerjust geneticistsand population biologists,but also politicalactivists,individualsclaiminginclusionin a particular ethnic, racial,or nationalgroup,and those who must decide to accept or reject their claims. To interpretthe results of researchwith genetic markers means not just judgingwhether the laboratoryused the rightpopulation-specificallele or had a largeenough sample size. Italso involvesjudgingthe worth of genetic knowledge against other kinds of claims to authentic identity and group membership(oralhistory,writtendocumentation,culturalpractices,inclaimsof identityor rightWhatis at stake in genetically-based ner convictions). ful belonging is not just good or bad science. Whatis at stake is also personal esteem and self-worth,group cohesion, access to resources,and the redressing of historicalinjustice.
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Itturns out that setting the recordstraightabout who is relatedto whom is contested rightfrom the start, and for good reason. Addinggenetic evidence does not make things any easier; it might even make things harder. In any case, it adds an entirelynew set of expertsto the debates (not just the archivist, historian,the professorof ethnic studies or anthropology,but also the bioethicist and geneticist).Atthe end of my essay,I will raisesome questionsabout the place of expert authorityin this arena. But let me begin with some axioms for thinkingabout identityclaims in the wake of contemporarygenetics. The techniques I mentioned above-use of genetic markers,especially Y chromosome and mitochondrialDNAmutations-generate knowledgeof ancestry,the links between people in the present and their biologicalforbears. They announce a long-termgenerational connection. But people always use knowledge of ancestry to illuminate social connections in the present. Knowledgeof ancestryratifiesor even creates a social connection in the present. Forexample, geneticists in Englandhave used Y-chromosomemarkersto demonstratethat at least one of the clans of Lemba,a tribe in SouthAfrica and
Zimbabwe, may be descended from Semitic peoples. Lemba interpreted the ge-

netic finding as confirmingtheir oral tradition of Jewish descent. It also confirmedtheir convictionthat they are Jews,whichthey alreadybelieved because of such practicesas keeping one day of the week holy, circumcisingnewborn males, and not eating pork. However,what does it mean to say that this evidence "confirms" Jewishidentityof Lemba? the Afterall, Jewsthemselves have their own complexand historically rooted rulesfor judgingmembership(which the efficacyof conversion,specifythe matrilinealinheritanceof Jewish govern identity,etc.). Geneticevidence will probablynot fit perfectlyinto these longstanding and canonically-basedrules of ethnic inclusionand exclusion. Forthe Lemba, Jewish" loadedterm) findingout that they were "genetically (a confirmed theiroraltradition, it did not leadto massimmigration Israel but to and demandforcitizenship that offersthe papers.Butwhat if it had?(Remember Israel of to It's and "right return" allJews.) an important thoughtexperiment, it illustrates Toclaima certainsocialidentity certainrightsand my majorpoint. alwaysimplies To obligations. specifywhat countsas legitimatebelongingwillaffecthow people respect such rightsor enforce these obligations.Forexample, specifyingwhat countsas a mother-child tech(in relationship a worldof sophisticated surrogacy where childrencan havetwo or even three mothers)is priorto deciding nologies what mothersand childrenowe to each other.Specifying who countsas a citizen conventional of what a nationand its citizensowe each othprecedes judgments er and what sortof moralclaimthey have on each other.
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We must thereforeask, how does new genetic knowledgechange the ways people claim connection to each other and to larger collectivities?How, in turn, does this process change the resultingwebs of obligation and responsibility:personal, legal, moral, and financial?Knowledgeof genetic connection altershow we imagineour "significant same":those people who are significantly like me, connected to me, and hence the same as me in some categorical sense. Geneticknowledge has the power to change the group with whom we sharea "deep,horizontal comradeship" 1991).Thechangescould un(Anderson fold in two ways: (1) such knowledge may undermine receivedwisdom about family, ethnic, and racial identity or (2) it may shore up conventional understandings of identity. Of course, knowledge itself doesn't change anything. Particularpeople use such knowledge either to undermine or buttress conventional understandings.Evenmore, they use the knowledgeas historicalactors, aware of their group'sunique tragediesand longed-forfuture,and also as politicalactors seeking out compromiseand short-termgains. The possibilityof tracinggenetic linksbetween African-Americans popand ulations in Westand Central Africailluminatessimilarissues, and it also paves the way for my final point about the ambiguitiesof professionalexpertise.Is it or to possibleto use DNAmarkers tracea genealogicallinkbetween individuals and ethnic or tribalcommunities in Africa? it feasible to families in the USA Is do so (in terms of time and money, access to individualsin Africancountries willingto donate their genetic material,etc.) Howshould genetic evidence be integrated with oral history and archivalevidence (manifests of slave ships, plantation records,contemporarychronicles,etc.)?The turn to genetics obviously demands carefulmethodologicalthinking. But it also raisesoverarchingand quite sensitive politicaland ethical questions. To begin with, we should interrogatethe very way we discussthis use of genetic technologies. Whois posing the questions, and before what audience? At what point, in the long historyof Americanracism,have Americansbegun to raise these questions about genetic and culturalconnections? How do the We questions arise from popular self-consciousnessabout multi-culturalism? should also recognizethe emotional stakesin the discussion.Culture loss, as exin the MiddlePassage,is something to be mourned. To referto this perienced use of population genetics as the "restoration African-American of genealogy" or a "vitalstep in helping ... heal the historicalwounds of slavery"(in the words of supportersof such tests quoted in the national media) already raises expectationsand sets in motion a powerfulnarrativeof loss and redemption. Againwe must ask, how does the addition of genetic evidence change the
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way people figuretheir membershipin a certaingroup?Thinkof the experience of Jewswho visit the WesternWallin Jerusalem.ManyAmericanJewswho visit it reportan unexpected experience:their collective historyhas suddenly become material,renderedtangibleand visible.Visitingit, seeing it, and touching it createsthe sense that their group'smyth has just been authorizedas non-fiction. A mere notion or shared recollectionof the past has become certifiedas objectivehistory.(Thisis a crucialchange, since notionsof objectivehistorytypicallyfunctionas chartersfor politicalmobilizationin the present.)Establishing genetic connections is thus enormouslycompellingfor people who mournthe passage from homeland to diaspora, and whose collective identity involves the sense of unjustdislocationand culture-loss. there are also potentialdangersto this use of genetic evidence. In However, the case of African-American ancestry projects, it may provide a competing basis for ethnic identification(e.g., Yoruba,Fulani,Wolof)which can undercut the sense of shared interests(and hence unity)among African-American coman alternativebasis of ethnic identification munities in the USA. Givingpeople may well run into the same opposition as the used of "mixed race" as a what new colAmericancensus category,and for the same reasons. Moreover, lective identity terms should people use? Wouldit make sense to use ethnic terms (such as Yoruba)? Wouldn'tregionalterms (e.g., the Casamanceregion, the Nigerdelta) be more appropriate,given the scientificframeworksof population genetics?Whatabout terms such as Senegalese or Malianwhich refer simultaneouslyto a geographic region and a politicalentity (albeit one created in part by Europeancolonialism).In general, such questions demonstrate how genetic evidence can de-stabilize long-standingpatterns of community membership.Additionally, genetic knowledge might also provoke"ethnogenesis"or the emergence of novel ethnic formations. MitochondrialDNAand Y-chromosometracing concerns genealogical descent in exclusivelythe female or male line, respectively. preciselybecause But of the nature of New Worldslavery, many people have complex mixed genealogies, created by sexual exploitationand the deliberatemixingof enslaved Africans duringthe MiddlePassageand on Americanor Caribbean plantations. Basingan account of one's "cultural past"on genetic evidence may thus substitute a fictivelypure genealogy for a more historically accurate,but mixed,one. We need to ask, therefore,what people wish to accomplishthroughthe use of ancestries. genetictracingof African Arguably, people here are turningto genetic evidence in orderto stabilizea particular historical consciousness: conviction the of connectedness to a certainculturalgroup over vast distance and centuries327

AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY ESSENTIALISM OF GENETICS, IDENTITY,

it long separation.Suchevidence becomes compellingfor two reasons.First, acquiresthe general cachet of science as the ultimateguarantorof truth. Butsecond, people regard genes as "more stable over time than more putatively accidentalaspects of identity" citizenship,religion,etc.). (suchas nationality, To be blunt:are people being seduced by the promiseof a pure, but fictive genealogy? Considerthe following example. Y chromosomes are passed only throughthe male line, and an individualhas 16 male ancestors in the 5th preceding generation. Ifyou had 1 Europeanancestor in that generation,and the rest of your male (and female) ancestorswere African, than you would be 1/32 but phenotypicallyblack,and of course culturallyblack in the USA. European, But if that Europeanman happened to be your father's father'sfather's father'sfather,then Y-chromosome typingwould place your ancestryentirelyin Europe(for example, in some Scottishvillage).Findingthat you are genetically descended from a Scottishhighlanderwill certainlyde-stabilizeyour ethnic narrativethat you identity! Such knowledge rupturesthe backward-looking had hoped to confirm. Do the expertsin relevantfields (biologicaland culturalanthropologists, geneticists, ethicists, etc.) have a professional responsibilityto ensure that the users of African-American genetic genealogies don't make mistakes-that is, that they don't succumb to a population-basedgenetic essentialism?To begin with, no responsible geneticistwouldsaythat there existsa singlegene for a complex behavioraltrait, let alone the markerfor an ethnic-racial group.A gene is simplya long stringof base nucleotides,and the passagefrom nucleotideto proto tein to anatomicalstructure behaviorto collectivebehaviorto self-conscious, notion of ethnic distinctionis very long indeed. So, the historically-emergent is (and left-liberal) scholarly oppositionto "geneticessentialism" not reallya reaction to contemporarygenetics, but ratherto its reception.The essentializing occursat the level of popularreconstructions geneticscience,and professional of anti-essentialistinterventionsshould be directedthere as well. Whatis the place of expertknowledge(of the geneticist,the philosopher, the in the scenario about Y-chromosomaltracing and Africananthropologist) American Is genealogies(orsimilargenetic identityprojects)? it to replacea misof genetics with a true understanding? it to warn the "users" Is understanding of genetic knowledgenot to make mistakes? it to become "culture Is broker" between lay and scientificviews? If so, should we carryout the brokeragein only one direction(makesure the lay views conformto the scientificviews?)Why not the other way around?Whatif the misunderstanding genetics, in a parof ticularcase, actuallyhas politically effects (such advantageous(and progressive)
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as increased pride in one's heritage)? Should expert voices still attempt to demolish genetic essentialism? One alternative use of expert knowledge is to support what one scholar calls strategic essentialism. From this standpoint, the ratification, via genetic knowledge, of one's collective memory ("mygroup's story/memory just become scientific history; its 'fiction'just became non-fiction") should not be corrected. Redemptive memory carries its own justification; it has strategic uses given certain oppressive political realities. Therefore, the re-possession of a dis-possessed past should not be blocked by an otherwise salutary warning against genetic essentialism (cf. Williams and Chrisman 1994: 11). Such questions about expert authority-expert for whom, and to whose benefit?-must be asked anew for each case: Lemba identity as Jews, AfricanAmerican ancestry projects, and the use (or non-use) of genetic evidence for various identity claims among Native Americans. In the contests over recognition, expert authorities do not stand outside or above the fray. Their opinions affect who controls recognition and how claims of connection are evaluated. In the long run, they also affect how resources get allocated and how people imagine their "deep comradeship" and authentic selves. Entering this field demands humility as well as attention to who is participating (and not participating) in the debate and among the circle of experts. Nonetheless, certain questions do cry out for anthropological expertise. Why does genetic evidence prove so compelling in some cases (e.g., among diasporic Jews and certain voices in the African-American community) and not in others (notably Native Americans)? Why is it easily accepted by some groups, but the target of extreme suspicion in others? The availability of genetic tracing surely alters the playing field of identity claims, but it does so differently in each case, and anthropologists can help pinpoint the historical and political factors at work. Current debates over genetically based identity claims thus challenge the reflexive anti-essentialism of contemporary anthropology. Yet they also reanimate the historic mission of our discipline: to conceptualize difference in precise ways and with full awareness of the political stakes of expert knowldege.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Research has been funded by a grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute, Programon Ethical,Legal,and Social Implications(ELSI): Race, Citizenship:Identity "Ethnicity, After the Human Genome Project"(GrantNo. 5R01-02196. Thanks to CarlElliott (PI),Laurie Zoloth (co-PI), MarkThomas, Francoise Bayliss, and other grant participants. Please direct comments to the author [brodwin@uwm.edu].

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REFERENCES Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities:Reflectionsand the Originsand Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso Press. Brodwin, Paul (ed). 2000. Biotechnology and Culture:Bodies, Anxieties, Ethics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press the Finkler,Kaja2000. Experiencing New Genetics:Familyand Kinshipon the MedicalFrontier. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hall, Stuart and Paul du Gay (eds.) 1996. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage Publications. McRobbie, Angela. 1994. Postmodernism and Popular Culture.London: Routledge. Rapp, Rayna. 1999. TestingWomen, Testingthe Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America. New York:Routledge Press. Williams, Patrickand LauraChrisman. 1994. Colonial Discourse and Post-ColonialTheory:A Reader. New York:Columbia University Press.

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