The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome

Sociologist Nelson probes the “perceived omnipotence” and “growing utility” of genetic testing in the modern United States in this study of African-American interest in the technology for ancestry research. While focusing on one particular company, African Ancestry, she also attends to the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City, the slavery-reparations lawsuit Farmer-Paellmann v. Fleet Boston, and the Leon Sullivan Foundation’s Global African Reunion, aimed at strengthening links throughout the black diaspora. Venturing abroad, Nelson covers the work by Mary-Claire King, an American geneticist, with the Argentinian organization Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), which traces the children of people murdered by the government during the 1970s Dirty War. The language involved in discussing the human genome is, of necessity, often technical, but Nelson’s work is supplemented and enlivened by interactions with “root-seekers” at a variety of gatherings. An early stimulus to much of this work, the 1977 blockbuster miniseries Roots, is acknowledged, as is its modern-day offspring, genealogy-themed reality TV shows. Nelson’s conclusions are primarily of academic interest, but the current fascination with genetics testing may also attract general readers. (Jan.)