anthropology of essential ism

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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

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SOCIALTHOUGHTAND COMMENTARYGenetics , Identity, a n d t h eAnthropologyf EssentialismBy Paul BrodwinUniversityof Wisconsin-Milwaukee

or several decades, anthropology has participated in the general decon-struction of "identity" as a stable object of scholarly inquiry. The notion

that individuals craft their identity through social performances, and hencethat their identity is not a fixed essence, fundamentally drives current researchinto gender and sexuality.The notion that collective identity emerges out of po-litical struggle and compromise underlies contemporary studies of race, eth-nicity and nationalism. The anti-essentialist mood of today's anthropology fitswith wider currents in philosophy (e.g., critiques of the autonomous, self-sus-taining subject within Western metaphysics) as well as feminism and culturalstudies (e.g., examination of the unconscious aspects of identity formation andthe political resistance enabled by multiple and hybrid identities) (see Hall andDu Gay 1996, McRobbie 1994).

Outside the academy, however, and to the dismay of anthropologists whofancy themselves as the cultural avant-garde, essentialist identities grow evermore powerful and seductive. New genetic knowledge, for example, adds thecachet of objective science to the notion that one's identity is an inborn, natu-ral, and unalterable quality. Rapid advances in sequencing and analyzing thehuman genome have strengthened essentialist thinking about identity in

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American ocietyand elsewhere,and anthropologistscan help elucidatewhatis at stake.Emerginggenetic knowledgethus has the potentialto transformcontem-porarynotionsof social coherenceand groupidentity.I am the co-principaln-vestigator of an interdisciplinarygroup pursuing this topic, funded by amulti-year rantfrom the NationalHumanGenomeResearch nstitute hroughitsprogramon Ethical,Legaland SocialImplicationsELSI).urresearch eam,comprisingleading bioethicists,geneticists,and ethnic studies specialists, isbuildinga commonvocabulary ndconceptual rameworkor the effectsof cur-rent-daygeneticson notionsof individual nd collective dentity,and hence thefundamental basisforsocialconnection.

Why s this a compellingquestionforanthropology?Asgenetictechnologiesmove out of research aboratories nd intopublic ife,there arise enormousde-bates about theirproperuse and interpretationsee Brodwin2000). The ram-ifyingdebatesaboutgenetictechnologies(whichappearincourtcases,internetsites,articlesand books)aredrivenby largerquestionsabout inclusionand di-versity n American ociety,as RaynaRapp 1999)and KajaFinkler2000)havedemonstrated for genetic testing and predictivediagnosis. Not surprisingly,contemporarydebates over claimsof identity(who Iam, fundamentally)andof social connection(whoIbelongwith,fundamentally)haveveryhighstakes.Moreover,he meaningof the "fundamental,"nthat lastsentence, changesinthe presenceof genetic evidence.

Forexample,tracingyourancestry-via a patternof particularlleles,or mu-tations on the Y chromosome or in mitochondrialDNA-has become not justa laboratory echnique, but a politicalact. Who in our society requeststhissort of DNAanalysis,and who provides t? Oncepeople learn the results,whocontrolswhat those resultsmean?It is no longer ust geneticistsand populationbiologists,but also politicalactivists, ndividualsclaiminginclusionina partic-ularethnic, racial,or nationalgroup,and those who must decide to acceptorrejecttheir claims. To interpretthe results of researchwith genetic markersmeans not just judgingwhetherthe laboratoryused the rightpopulation-spe-cificallele or had a largeenoughsamplesize. Italso involves udging he worthof genetic knowledge againstother kinds of claimsto authentic identityandgroupmembership(oralhistory,writtendocumentation,culturalpractices, n-nerconvictions).What s at stakeingenetically-based laimsof identityor right-ful belongingis not justgood or bad science. What s at stake is also personalesteem and self-worth,groupcohesion,access to resources,and the redressingof historical njustice.324


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It turns out that settingthe recordstraightabout who is related to whom iscontested rightfrom the start,and for good reason.Addinggenetic evidencedoes not make things any easier; it might even make things harder.In anycase, itaddsan entirelynew set of experts o the debates(notjustthe archivist,historian, he professorof ethnic studies oranthropology,but also the bioethi-cist and geneticist).Atthe end of my essay,Iwillraisesome questionsabout theplaceof expertauthority n this arena. But let me beginwith some axiomsforthinkingabout identityclaimsin the wake of contemporarygenetics.

The techniques I mentioned above-use of genetic markers,especiallyYchromosome and mitochondrialDNAmutations-generate knowledgeof an-cestry,the links between people in the presentand their biologicalforbears.Theyannounce a long-term generationalconnection. But people alwaysuseknowledge of ancestry to illuminate social connections in the present.Knowledgeof ancestryratifiesor even createsa social connection in the pres-ent. Forexample,geneticistsin Englandhave used Y-chromosomemarkers odemonstratethatat leastone of the clans of Lemba,a tribein SouthAfrica ndZimbabwe, may be descended from Semitic peoples. Lemba interpreted the ge-netic findingas confirming heir oral tradition of Jewishdescent. It also con-firmedtheir conviction hattheyareJews,whichtheyalreadybelievedbecauseof such practicesas keepingone day of the week holy,circumcisingnewbornmales, and not eating pork.However,what does it mean to say that this evi-dence "confirms"he Jewish dentityof Lemba?Afterall,Jewsthemselves havetheir own complexand historicallyooted rules orjudgingmembership whichgovernthe efficacyof conversion,specifythe matrilineal nheritanceof Jewishidentity,etc.). Geneticevidence will probablynot fit perfectly nto these long-standingand canonically-basedrules of ethnic inclusionand exclusion.

For he Lemba, indingout thattheywere"geneticallyewish"aloadedterm)confirmed heiroral radition, ut it didnot leadto mass mmigrationo Israel nddemandforcitizenship apers.Butwhatif ithad? RememberhatIsrael ffers he"right f return"o allJews.) t'san importanthoughtexperiment, nd it illustratesmymajorpoint.Toclaima certain ocial dentity lways mpliescertainrightsandobligations.Tospecifywhat countsas legitimatebelongingwillaffecthowpeoplerespectsuch rightsor enforcethese obligations.Forexample,specifyingwhatcounts as a mother-child elationshipina worldof sophisticated urrogacyech-nologieswhere childrencan have two or even threemothers)s prior o decidingwhat mothersandchildrenowe to each other.Specifyingwho countsas a citizenprecedesconventionaludgmentsof what a nationand its citizensowe each oth-er and whatsort of moralclaimthey have on each other.

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Wemust thereforeask, how does new genetic knowledge change the wayspeople claim connection to each other and to largercollectivities?How,inturn,does this processchange the resultingwebs of obligationand responsi-bility:personal,legal, moral,and financial?Knowledgeof genetic connectionaltershowwe imagineour"significantame": hose peoplewhoaresignificantlylike me, connected to me, and hence the same as me in some categoricalsense. Geneticknowledgehas the powerto change the groupwith whom wesharea "deep,horizontal omradeship"Anderson 991).Thechangescould un-fold in two ways:(1)such knowledgemay undermine receivedwisdom aboutfamily,ethnic, and racialidentityor (2) it may shore up conventional under-standings of identity.Of course, knowledge itself doesn't change anything.Particularpeople use such knowledgeeither to undermine or buttress con-ventionalunderstandings.Evenmore,they use the knowledgeas historicalac-tors,awareof theirgroup'suniquetragediesand longed-for uture,and also aspoliticalactorsseekingout compromiseand short-termgains.

Thepossibilityof tracinggenetic links between African-Americansnd pop-ulationsin Westand CentralAfrica lluminatessimilar ssues,and it also pavesthe wayformyfinalpointabout the ambiguitiesof professionalexpertise.Is itpossibleto use DNAmarkers o tracea genealogical inkbetween individuals rfamilies in the USA nd ethnic or tribal communitiesinAfrica? s it feasible todo so (interms of time and money,access to individuals n Africancountrieswillingto donate theirgenetic material,etc.) Howshouldgenetic evidence beintegratedwith oral historyand archival evidence (manifestsof slave ships,plantationrecords,contemporarychronicles,etc.)?Theturn to geneticsobvi-ouslydemands carefulmethodologicalthinking.

Butit also raisesoverarchingand quite sensitivepoliticaland ethicalques-tions. Tobeginwith,we should interrogate he very waywe discussthis use ofgenetic technologies.Who is posingthe questions,and before what audience?At what point, in the long historyof Americanracism,have Americansbegunto raise these questionsabout genetic and culturalconnections? Howdo thequestions arise from popularself-consciousnessabout multi-culturalism?Weshould also recognize he emotional stakesinthe discussion.Cultureoss,as ex-periencedin the MiddlePassage,is somethingto be mourned.Toreferto thisuse of populationgeneticsas the "restoration f African-Americanenealogy"or a "vitalstep in helping ... heal the historicalwounds of slavery" in thewordsof supportersof such tests quoted in the nationalmedia) alreadyraisesexpectationsand sets in motion a powerfulnarrativeof lossand redemption.Againwe must ask, how does the addition of genetic evidence change the326


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way people figure heirmembership n a certaingroup?Thinkof the experienceof Jewswho visit the WesternWall nJerusalem.ManyAmericanJewswho vis-it it reportan unexpectedexperience:theircollectivehistoryhassuddenlybe-come material,rendered angibleand visible.Visitingt,seeing it,andtouchingit createsthe sense that theirgroup'smythhasjustbeen authorizedas non-fic-tion. Amere notion or sharedrecollectionof the past has become certifiedasobjectivehistory. This s a crucialchange,since notionsof objectivehistory yp-ically unction as charters orpoliticalmobilization n the present.)Establishinggeneticconnections isthus enormouslycompellingfor peoplewho mourn thepassage from homeland to diaspora,and whose collective identity involvesthe sense of unjustdislocationand culture-loss.

However,here are also potentialdangersto this use of geneticevidence. Inthe case of African-Americanncestryprojects,it may providea competingbasis for ethnic identification e.g.,Yoruba,Fulani,Wolof)whichcan undercutthe sense of shared interests(and hence unity)among African-Americanom-munitiesinthe USA.Givingpeople an alternativebasis of ethnic identificationmay well run into the same opposition as the used of "mixed race"as aAmericancensuscategory,and for the same reasons.Moreover,what new col-lective identityterms should people use? Would t make sense to use ethnicterms (suchas Yoruba)?Wouldn'tregionalterms (e.g., the Casamanceregion,the Nigerdelta)be more appropriate,giventhe scientificframeworksof pop-ulationgenetics?Whatabout terms such as Senegaleseor Malianwhich refersimultaneously o a geographicregionand a politicalentity (albeitone creat-ed in partby Europeancolonialism).Ingeneral, such questionsdemonstratehow genetic evidence can de-stabilizelong-standingpatternsof communitymembership.Additionally, enetic knowledgemightalso provoke"ethnogen-esis"or the emergenceof novel ethnic formations.

MitochondrialDNAand Y-chromosome racingconcernsgenealogicalde-scent in exclusively he female or male line, respectively.Butpreciselybecauseof the nature of New Worldslavery, many people have complex mixed ge-nealogies,createdbysexualexploitationand the deliberatemixingof enslavedAfricansduring he MiddlePassageand on Americanor Caribbeanplantations.Basingan accountof one's "cultural ast"on geneticevidencemaythus substi-tute a fictivelypuregenealogyfor a morehistorically ccurate,but mixed,one.Weneed to ask, therefore,what people wish to accomplish hroughthe use ofgenetictracingof African ncestries.Arguably, eoplehere areturning o geneticevidenceinorder o stabilizea particular istorical onsciousness: he convictionof connectedness to a certainculturalgroupover vast distance and centuries-

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longseparation.Suchevidence becomescompelling or two reasons.First,tac-quiresthe generalcachet of science as the ultimateguarantorof truth. Butsec-ond, people regardgenes as "more stable over time than more putativelyaccidentalaspectsof identity"suchas nationality, itizenship,religion,etc.).

To be blunt: are people beingseduced bythe promiseof a pure,but fictivegenealogy?Consider he following example. Ychromosomes are passed onlythroughthe male line,and an individualhas 16 male ancestorsin the 5th pre-cedinggeneration.Ifyou had 1 Europeanancestor in that generation,and therest of yourmale (andfemale)ancestorswereAfrican,hanyou would be 1/32European,but phenotypicallyblack,and of courseculturallyblack in the USA.But if that Europeanman happened to be your father's father's father'sfa-ther'sfather,then Y-chromosomeypingwould place your ancestryentirelyinEurope forexample, in some Scottishvillage). Finding hat you are genetical-ly descendedfrom a Scottishhighlanderwillcertainlyde-stabilizeyourethnicidentity!Such knowledge rupturesthe backward-lookingnarrativethat youhad hoped to confirm.Do the experts n relevant ields(biologicaland culturalanthropologists, e-neticists, ethicists, etc.) have a professional responsibility o ensure that theusers of African-Americanenetic genealogies don't make mistakes-that is,that they don't succumbto a population-basedgeneticessentialism?Tobeginwith,no responsible eneticistwouldsaythat there existsa singlegenefor a com-plexbehavioral rait,let alone the marker or an ethnic-racial roup.Agene issimplya long stringof basenucleotides,and the passage rom nucleotide o pro-tein to anatomicalstructureo behavior o collectivebehavior o self-conscious,historically-emergent otion of ethnic distinction is very long indeed. So, thescholarly andleft-liberal) ppositionto "geneticessentialism"s not reallya re-action to contemporarygenetics,but rather o its reception.Theessentializingoccursat the level of popularreconstructionsf geneticscience,and professionalanti-essentialist nterventions hould be directed here as well.

What s the placeof expertknowledge ofthe geneticist, he philosopher,heanthropologist) in the scenario about Y-chromosomal racing and African-American enealogies(orsimilargenetic identityprojects)?s it to replacea mis-understandingof geneticswith a true understanding?s it to warn the "users"of geneticknowledgenot to make mistakes? s itto become "culture roker" e-tween layand scientificviews? Ifso, shouldwe carryout the brokerage n on-lyone direction(makesure the layviewsconformto the scientificviews?)Whynot the otherwayaround?What f the misunderstanding f genetics, in a par-ticularcase,actuallyhaspolitically dvantageous andprogressive)ffects(such328


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as increased pride in one's heritage)? Should expert voices still attempt to de-molish genetic essentialism? One alternative use of expert knowledge is to sup-port what one scholar calls strategic essentialism. From this standpoint, theratification, via genetic knowledge, of one's collective memory ("my group's sto-ry/memory just become scientific history; its 'fiction'just became non-fiction")should not be corrected. Redemptive memory carries its own justification; it hasstrategic uses given certain oppressive political realities. Therefore, the re-pos-session of a dis-possessed past should not be blocked by an otherwise salutarywarning against genetic essentialism (cf. Williams and Chrisman 1994: 11).Such questions about expert authority-expert for whom, and to whosebenefit?-must be asked anew for each case: Lemba identity as Jews, African-American ancestry projects, and the use (or non-use) of genetic evidence for var-ious identity claims among Native Americans. Inthe contests over recognition,expert authorities do not stand outside or above the fray.Their opinions affectwho controls recognition and how claims of connection are evaluated. In thelong run, they also affect how resources get allocated and how people imaginetheir "deep comradeship" and authentic selves. Enteringthis field demands hu-mility as well as attention to who is participating (and not participating) in thedebate and among the circle of experts.

Nonetheless, certain questions do cry out for anthropological expertise. Whydoes genetic evidence prove so compelling in some cases (e.g., among diasporicJews and certain voices in the African-Americancommunity) and not in others(notably Native Americans)? Why is it easily accepted by some groups, but thetarget of extreme suspicion in others? The availability of genetic tracing surelyalters the playing field of identity claims, but it does so differently in each case,and anthropologists can help pinpoint the historical and political factors atwork. Current debates over genetically based identity claims thus challengethe reflexive anti-essentialism of contemporary anthropology. Yet they also re-animate the historic mission of our discipline: to conceptualize difference in pre-cise ways and with full awareness of the political stakes of expert knowldege.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSResearch has been funded by a grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute,Programon Ethical,Legal,and Social Implications(ELSI):Ethnicity,Race,Citizenship:IdentityAfterthe Human Genome Project" GrantNo. 5R01-02196. Thanks to CarlElliott(PI),LaurieZoloth (co-PI),MarkThomas, Francoise Bayliss, and other grant participants. Please directcomments to the author [[email protected]].

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REFERENCESAnderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities:Reflectionsand the Originsand SpreadofNationalism. London: Verso Press.Brodwin, Paul (ed). 2000. Biotechnologyand Culture:Bodies,Anxieties,Ethics.Bloomington,IN: Indiana University PressFinkler,Kaja2000. Experiencinghe New Genetics:Familyand Kinshipon the Medical Frontier.

Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press.Hall, Stuart and Paul du Gay (eds.) 1996. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: SagePublications.McRobbie,Angela. 1994. Postmodernismand Popular Culture.London: Routledge.Rapp, Rayna. 1999. TestingWomen,Testingthe Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis inAmerica. New York:Routledge Press.Williams, Patrickand LauraChrisman. 1994. Colonial Discourse and Post-ColonialTheory:AReader. New York:Columbia University Press.

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