Anti-humanist response to Genetic Testing
"Native American bodies, both dead and living, have been sources of bone, and more recently of blood, spit, and hair, used to constitute knowledge of human biological and cultural history."
-Kim TallBear (Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science)
Across her work, she looks at how native American populations have been exploited by the scientific community and regards genetic testing as a vector for this oppression. As a result, instead of being more bio-political, genetic testing could be regarded within Necropolitics, or the power of a State to impose a collective death (civil or physical) on a population in a colonial context.
Most can agree, especially when watching the dozens of interviews on the 23andMe page, that being 'all-knowing' of one's identity is a key for personal success and happiness. However, TallBear claims that the medical community has, over decades, justified their thirst for knowledge is for the greater good, and a kind of unquestionable betterment of society that comes with advancements. TallBear subsequently reorients this claim by asking the questions "Good for who?", "Does good always mean good for everybody?".While reading Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, the answer to the latter is undoubtedly 'no'. More than that, it is in the process of this research that native American tombs are robbed, desecrated and dug-up against their will, a sure sign of disrespect for their cultural practices. As a justification for this, the researchers retaliate with the fatalist, generalizing excuse that "indigenous peoples" are doomed to vanish anyway.
Paradoxically, there has been a rise of Cherokee Identity Appropriation in the past few decades. Politiciens or celebrities vocalize and document that "'spiritual connections' they've always felt Native American." claiming
This page has paths:
- What is genetic testing? Adele Greenman
