Genomic anthropology: coming in from the cold?

By rendering obsolete the theoretical opposition of nature and culture, the study of the human genome has given rise to fresh networks among anthropologists and other scholars. These developments, in turn, invite a refashioning of anthropology. Because genomic studies are directly concerned with the constitution of personhood, they must engage with local notions of personhood and belonging, thus undermining the distinction between experts and laypersons and demonstrating the need for new frameworks for collaboration between anthropologists and their subjects.

mtDNA variation in Inuit populations of Greenland and Canada: migration history and population structure.

We examined 395 mtDNA control-region sequences from Greenlandic Inuit and Canadian Kitikmeot Inuit with the aim of shedding light on the migration history that underlies the present geographic patterns of genetic variation at this locus in the Arctic. In line with previous studies, we found that Inuit populations carry only sequences belonging to haplotype clusters A2 and D3. However, a comparison of Arctic populations from Siberia, Canada, and Greenland revealed considerable differences in the frequencies of these haplotypes.

Blondes, lost and found: representations of genes, identity, and history.

Research carried out during recent decades has revealed our genome not only to be a unique mine of information about health, disease and the human condition, but also about the origin and dispersal history of the species. In this context, the genome is simply an additional source of information about human history, epistemologically no different from other historical sources. However, media and public interpretation of genetic studies of human history are complicated by the wider connotations of genes as the determinants of hereditary features and identity.

The life of family trees and the Book of Icelanders.

This article discusses the tracing of family histories and competing assumptions about identities and relatedness in the era of biotechnology and biopower. Although the fascination with genealogical trees and family histories is common throughout the West, in Iceland this attraction is extreme. A genealogical database for most of the Icelandic population, the so-called Book of Icelanders, is being constructed as part of a larger biogenetic enterprise that seeks to establish the presumed genetic causes of common diseases for the purpose of developing pharmaceutical products.