This book looks very interesting. I had a chance to listen to Kim TallBear last fall and have been looking forward to this book. Here is the publisher’s description and, below, a talk by the author on a slightly different, though connected topic. Listen to an interview with Kim TallBear talk about the book here.
Kim TallBear’s new book transcends academic disciplines. Bringing together STS, Native American and Indigenous Studies, histories of science and race, ethnography, and cultural studies, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) traces a genealogy of “Native American DNA” as an object, an instrument, and an idea. Gripping and important on many levels, TallBear’s book situates the emergence of genetic notions of racial and tribal identity within broader histories and debates over notions of blood, race, and tribe; within a history and ethnography of DNA profiling from the perspective of both DNA-testing companies and the consumers of “genetic genealogy;” and within a study of the business of genetic research as manifest in the “Genographic Project.” TallBear’s book closes by offering specific, concrete ideas for more productively engaging genetic science and native peoples in the future. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the co-production of technoscience and identity in the modern world.
enjoyed the interview and the approach reminded me in good ways of Rabinow and co. but not so sure that political powers/actors and their corporate-science counterparts care so much if what they are doing matches their justifying rhetoric about why they are doing it, maybe it matters more if the people being represented care enough either way to make their voices/votes heard/count.
That’s a good point. I’ll be interested to see how that tension plays out in the book – I’d think it would receive at least some coverage.