The Genealogical Science

The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology

Nadia Abu El-Haj

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780226154701, 9780226201405
• eBook ISBN: 9780226201429
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: Social Sciences

The Genealogical Science analyzes the scientific work and social implications of the flourishing field of genetic history. A biological discipline that relies on genetic data in order to reconstruct the geographic origins of contemporary populations—their histories of migration and genealogical connections to other present-day groups—this historical science is garnering ever more credibility and social reach, in large part due to a growing industry in ancestry testing. 

 

In this book, Nadia Abu El-Haj examines genetic history's working assumptions about culture and nature, identity and biology, and the individual and the collective. Through the example of the study of Jewish origins, she explores novel cultural and political practices that are emerging as genetic history's claims and "facts" circulate in the public domain and illustrates how this historical science is intrinsically entangled with cultural imaginations and political commitments.  Chronicling late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century understandings of race, nature, and culture, she identifies continuities and shifts in scientific claims, institutional contexts, and political worlds in order to show how the meanings of biological difference have changed over time.  In so doing she gives an account of how and why it is that genetic history is so socially felicitous today and elucidates the range of understandings of the self, individual and collective, this scientific field is making possible. More specifically, through her focus on the history of projects of Jewish self-fashioning that have taken place on the terrain of the biological sciences, The Genealogical Science analyzes genetic history as the latest iteration of a cultural and political practice now over a century old. 

INDEX

Aaron (biblical figure), Cohanim and, 14, 22, 33, 35, 48, 141, 190, 237

Abayudaya, 213

ABO Blood Groups, The (Mourant), 86

Abraham (biblical figure), 104, 197

Abraham’s People (Entine), 121

adenine, 267n3, 270n13

admixture (gene flow), 44, 52, 110, 270n7; Jewish maternal line and, 114; mapping, 21, 158, 268n18; superficiality and, 50–51; tests, 283n10

African American ancestry testing, reinforcing U.S. racial system and, 20

African American Lives, 3

African Americans, 22; BiDil for treating heart disease in, 137; self-studies and, 15; studies of phylogenies of, 3

African Ancestry, 152, 157

African Burial Ground Project (Manhattan), 15, 238, 281n23

African DNA, 146, 152, 284n13

African ethnic origins, no family records and testing for, 167

agency, 221; biological data and, 22; biology and, “returning” to Judaism for “lost tribes” and, 183; genetic history and liberal commitment to, 159, 247; genetic history practitioners and, 12; mitochondrial evidence and, 115; origin, culture, and, 118

AIMs. See Ancestry Informative Markers

aliyah, 199, 200, 212, 213; Ethiopian, 215; Kulanu’s mission statement on, 217; returning to a Jewish way of life and, 215

allele frequency, of microsatellites, 269n3

amalgamation, miscegenation and process of, 101

Amar, Rabbi Shlomo, 212

American Enterprise Institute, 178

American Jewish Committee, 275n17

American Jews: assimilation of, 19, 71; “becoming white,” political and social dynamics of, 143; construction of private Judaism for, 174; decline in population of, 199

American Journal of Human Genetics, 183

American Judaism, return to Jewishness, Israeli state and, 217

American multiculturalism, white ethnics in age of, 158. See also self-studies

American Museum of Natural History, 50, 192, 193, 202

American Revolution, race talk and “dual loyalty” in aftermath of, 273n8

American Society of Human Genetics, 145; “Statement on Ancestry Testing” issued by, 151, 156

Amishav (My People Return), 205, 207, 212, 213

Amorites, 74, 75

ancestry: common, genetic polymorphisms and descent from, 38–39; deep, 230; Jewish racial thought and, 215; meaning of, in world of genetic genealogy, 169–70

Ancestry by DNA, 157, 158

“AncestryByDna” test, description of, 283n10

Ancestry Information Markers, 21, 141, 271n21, 283n10

ancestry tests/testing, 4, 151–59; Alondra Nelson’s account of, 157; expense of, 160; forces related to shaping the meanings of, 8; interpreting results of, 157–58; launch of commercial market in, 141; lineal descent lines, genealogical self and, 175; making ethnic identification and, 154–56; marketing of choice and, 159–73; profit margins and, 147; reinforcing U.S. racial system and, 20; reliability of, 151; undergoing, reasons for, 1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION
• ONE / The Descent of Men
• TWO / What Are the Jews?
• THREE / Know Thyself
• FOUR / The Politics of Identity, Inc.
• FIVE / The Right of Return
• SIX / The Things We Carry: History through the Molecular Optic
• References
• Notes
• Index