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The route to your roots: New ethnic symbols in the age of the genome
Author(s) -
Carlson Hannah
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12642
Subject(s) - ethnic group , reification (marxism) , popularity , ethnography , genetic genealogy , sociology , gender studies , attendance , identity (music) , social psychology , psychology , anthropology , demography , political science , politics , population , aesthetics , law , philosophy
This study assesses the recent surge in popularity for genetic “ancestry” testing in the United States and what significance this has for Americans' use of symbolic ethnicities. Specifically, this study evaluates how commercial genetic tests allow for new engagement with a symbolic ethnicity and ethnic symbols (Gans, 1979). This study draws upon interviews, attendance of a genealogical conference and a virtual ethnography to support its arguments. The possibility of reification of ethnic, national and racial categories is discussed, alongside a discussion of the way genetic populations are technologically produced. This study draws upon the concepts of affiliative ethnicity (Jimenez, 2010); affiliative self‐fashioning (Nelson, 2008); geneticized identities (Roth & Ivemark, 2018) and Waters' Ethnic Options to argue that DTC genetic ancestry tests allow for a new type of play with ethnic symbols, resulting in cognizant engagement with symbolic ethnicities among Americans who take a genetic test with identity aspirations.