Technoscientific Migrations: The genetic architecture of gender, race and caste
Banu Subramaniam, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies,
University of Massachusetts Amherst,
Amherst MA 01003; banu@wost.umass.edu
Genetic studies on human migrations and diversity suggest global genealogical relationships
often unacknowledged within national histories. How do these new genealogical understandings
support or disrupt national and transnational histories? This paper examines the case of genetic
histories of the peoples of India. It will explore the contentious history of gender, race, caste and
science in India and how genetic studies complicate and obfuscate the relationships of our
understandings of our “genetic” natures and cultures. How then should we view the liberal
subject that transmutates through genetic and cultural migrations?
I address these questions through examining recent genetic studies in India that re-narrate human
migration histories that are at odds with national histories. Established narratives include the
migration of Aryans around 1500 B.C. Some recent genetic studies support the idea of “outside”
migrations, and in addition claim that “caste” hierarchies mirror race hierarchies with “upper
castes” being more closely related to Europeans. In contrast, other genetic studies find no
evidence of an Aryan migration, and contend that “Indians” are indigenous and the original
inhabitants of the subcontinent. The latter position has received support from the Hindu
nationalists and we have seen public and vocal political debates on these positions.
At the heart of this controversy is a burgeoning industry of contemporary genomics. While
others have focused on the political nature of the debates, here I examine the methods by which
scientists “read” the genome and I argue, claim a genetic architecture for gender, race and caste.
They engage in three sets of practices to make such claims. First, they sample extant populations.
Here they largely rely on self-identity to categorize participants. These are the basis of
established databases of world populations. Second, they compare these sequences with
populations in other regions of India, and world populations. Third, the methods largely rely on
gendered interpretations of the Y chromosome (passed through the male line) and the mt DNA
(passed through the female line). Thus scientific narratives of gender, race, and caste rely on
claims of contemporary self-identity, the homogeneity of these structures across India, and
problematic assumptions of the biological nature and social relations between men and women.
In examining the methods of contemporary ancestry testing, I examine claims for such genetic
architectures. What genetic testing has done, I argue, is shift social identity to genes/biology
identity with little acknowledgement of their co-production. This paper draws on all three themes
of your workshop. Genetic studies are “new sites” of knowledge and history making and the
technoscientific architecture of their claims need to be examined and theorized. The paper also
draws on how the new “geographies” of migration resemble the old geographies and how old
ideas of gender, race and caste have been made anew in recent studies. As genetic technologies
have moved out of research laboratories into public life, the paper draws on questions of new
bodies and new publics. The contestations between genetic studies are no longer among
scientists but have drawn a wide variety of political and social actors. Ultimately, I argue, rather
than DNA, it is the social and political that provide the scaffolding of genetic studies.