Genealogy

3218 KiB

Open AccessArticle

When Markers Meet Marketing: Ethnicity, Race, Hybridity, and Kinship in Genetic Genealogy Television Advertising

by Christine Scodari

Genealogy 2017, 1(4), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy1040022 - 07 Dec 2017

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 8543

The essay explores issues pertaining to genetics vs. culture in understandings of kinship, hybridity as a disruptor of essentialist conceptions of race, the fetishization of ethnicity and culture, racist misuses of genetic science, processes of racialization, and counter-hegemonic resistance. Thirty- and sixty-second television [...] Read more.

The essay explores issues pertaining to genetics vs. culture in understandings of kinship, hybridity as a disruptor of essentialist conceptions of race, the fetishization of ethnicity and culture, racist misuses of genetic science, processes of racialization, and counter-hegemonic resistance. Thirty- and sixty-second television advertisements airing in the U.S. from the 23andMe and AncestryDNA genetic genealogy testing services are analyzed in this context. The investigation demonstrates that genetic ancestry testing providers are well aware that their enterprise is premised on belief in the superiority of biological kinship and that hybridity is mobilized primarily as a marketing opportunity with ethnic components signified in shorthand by fetishized objects. Moreover, the categories of race and ethnicity presented in the ads give cover to racist abusers of genetic science, as the ads are consistent with socially constructed racial classifications. While maintaining this consistency, the categories are subject to adjustment based on the expectations of consumers. Resistance is possible in the use of genetic ancestry by descendants of African slaves to make localized connections to Africa, something that conventional genealogy seldom provides. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genetic Genealogy)

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227 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Persons and Sovereigns in Ethical Thought

by Ladelle McWhorter

Genealogy 2017, 1(4), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy1040021 - 20 Nov 2017

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3142

Abstract

Contemporary concepts of moral personhood prevent us from grappling effectively with contemporary social, political, and moral problems. One way to counter the power of such concepts is to trace their lineage and shifting political investments. This article presents a genealogy of personhood, focusing [...] Read more.

Contemporary concepts of moral personhood prevent us from grappling effectively with contemporary social, political, and moral problems. One way to counter the power of such concepts is to trace their lineage and shifting political investments. This article presents a genealogy of personhood, focusing on the crisis of both personhood and sovereignty in seventeenth-century England. It demonstrates the optionality of personhood for moral thinking and exposes personhood’s functions in political dividing practices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beyond Foucault: Excursions in Political Genealogy)

153 KiB

Open AccessBook Review

Review-Discussion of Marco Solinas’s From Aristotle’s Teleology to Darwin’s Genealogy

by Walter Leszl

Genealogy 2017, 1(4), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy1040020 - 16 Oct 2017

Viewed by 2673

Abstract

The book I am discussing is the second book by Marco Solinas. He is the author of a book on Plato and Freud which first appeared in Italian (Solinas 2008) and then in an expanded version in German translation (Solinas 2012a)[...] Full article

189 KiB

Open AccessArticle

What’s in a Name? The Genealogy of Holocaust Identities

by Diane L. Wolf

Genealogy 2017, 1(4), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy1040019 - 06 Oct 2017

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4718

Abstract

In this essay, I analyze the terminology used in the United States (U.S.) to refer to Jews who lived through the Holocaust as well as their descendants. This essay constitutes a first step in a project focused on re-conceptualizing Holocaust survivors and their [...] Read more.

In this essay, I analyze the terminology used in the United States (U.S.) to refer to Jews who lived through the Holocaust as well as their descendants. This essay constitutes a first step in a project focused on re-conceptualizing Holocaust survivors and their families through the lens of agency and victimization. Many children and, more recently, grandchildren of Jewish Holocaust survivors trace their genealogy to their parent’s or grandparent’s past, and self-identify through this experience. The specific terms and labels used to identify or self-identify reflect different kinds of assumptions as well as claims on how that particular past affects their present. My preliminary findings suggest a paradoxical inversion of victimization and agency in some of the terminology used to identify or self-identify survivors as well as children of survivors. Full article

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Genealogy, Volume 1, Issue 4 (December 2017) – 4 articles

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