Biomapping indigenous peoples : : towards an understanding of the issues / / edited by Susanne Berthier-Foglar, Sheila Collingwood-Whittick and Sandrine Tolazzi.

• Superior document: Cross/cultures ; 151
• TeilnehmendeR: Berthier-Foglar, Susanne, 1953-; Collingwood-Whittick, Sheila.; Tolazzi, Sandrine.
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam ;, New York : : Rodopi.; ©2012.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Cross/Cultures 151.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (460 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Where do our distant ancestors come from, and which routes did they travel around the globe as hunter–gatherers in prehistoric times? Genomics provides a fascinating insight into these questions and unlocks a mass of information carried by strands of DNA in each cell of the human body. For Indigenous peoples, scientific research of any kind evokes past – and not forgotten – suffering, racial and racist taxonomy, and, finally, dispossession. Survival of human cell lines outside the body clashes with traditional beliefs, as does the notion that DNA may tell a story different from their own creation story. Extracting and analysing DNA is a new science, barely a few decades old. In the medical field, it carries the promise of genetically adapted health-care. However, if this is to be done, genetic identity has to be defined first. While a narrow genetic definition might be usable by medical science, it does not do justice to Indigenous peoples’ cultural identity and raises the question of governmental benefits where their genetic identity is not strong enough. People migrate and intermix, and have always done so. Genomics trace the genes but not the cultures. Cultural survival – or revival – and Indigenous group cohesion are unrelated to DNA, explaining why Indigenous leaders adamantly refuse genetic testing. This book deals with the issues surrounding ‘biomapping’ the Indigenous, seen from the viewpoints of discourse analysts, historians, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, museum curators, health-care specialists, and Native researchers.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Human Genomics and the Indigenous / Susanne Berthier–Foglar -- Indigenous Peoples and Western Science / Sheila Collingwood–Whittick -- Reconstruction of Indigenous Identities in the Twentieth Century / Sandrine Tolazzi -- Genetic Blood Testing of Native Americans in the USA / Renate Bartl -- Indigenous Peoples: Attempts to Define / Ulia Popova–Gosart -- Screening Indigenous Peoples’ Genes: The End of Racism, or Postmodern Bio-Imperialism / Frank Kressing -- No Matter How White or Black the Skin, How Pure the Blood: Cherokee Identity and the 2007 Vote / Séverine Gauthier–Labourot -- Tribal Communities and Genetic Research: Concerns and Expectations / Marie–Claude Strigler -- The Geneticization of Ethnicity and Ethnicization of Biomedicine: On the “Taiwan Bio-Bank” / Yu–Yueh Tsai -- Genome Survivance / Gerald Vizenor -- The Edge of Extinction: Ethnic Survival Among the Yukaghirs of Northern Yakutia / Jarosław Derlicki -- Genetic Signatures of Australia’s First Peoples Survive Recent History / Sheila Van Holst Pellekaan -- Nutrition and the Indigenous Body: A Genetic Concept of Food / Andrea Zittlau -- Indigenous Opposition to Genetics Research: Views from Aboriginal Australia / Sheila Collingwood–Whittick -- Disturbing Pasts and Promising Futures: The Politics of Indigenous Genetic Research in Australia / Emma Kowal -- Difficult Conversations: Talking About Indigenous Genetic Health Research in Australia / Emma Kowal and Ian Anderson -- Travelling Bones: The Repatriation of Indigenous Ancestral Remains / Matthew Rimmer -- Material Legacies: Indigenous Remains and Contested Values in UK Museum Collections / Lisa O’Sullivan -- Aboriginal Claims: DNA Ancestry Testing and Changing Concepts of Indigeneity / Natasha Golbeck and Wendy D. Roth -- Notes on Contributors and Editors -- Index.