From racial typology to DNA sequencing : Race and ethnicity and the science of human genetic variation 1945-2012

The project aims to shed light on how social and cultural notions of 'ethnicity', 'race' and ancestry interact with the production of scientific knowledge about human genetic variation, and to assess ethical issues related to such research. The project has ambitious communication plans that centers on the production of an exhibition at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, and related communication activities. These are described in the report for SAMKULprosjekt 258862. Two historical case studies deal with the history of physical anthropology and human population genetics in Greece and Scandinavia. On the Scandinavian case, Jon Kyllingstad has recently published a article that discusses the use of the concepts race and ethnicity within science, politics and public discourse in Norway form the interwar period to contemporary times. He is also about to complete two papers already presented in conferences under the titles "From Racial Typology to Population Genetics? Concepts of Race and the Swedish State Institute for Race Biology in Uppsala, 1930-1950" og "Ethnic groups and population boundaries. The Sami in the history and geography of human genes". The latter examines how in the 1980s and 1990s geneticists and archaeologists, who operated with varying concepts of ethnicity, produced contrasting account of Sami origins. The article "'Rase' - vitenskap og ideologi" is under publication in the journal Bårjås. Kyllingstad is also working with the article "Fingeravtrykkenes genetikk og forestillingen om rase: Om Kristine Bonnevies relasjon til rasehygienene og hennes forskning på papilarmønstre", with planned completion date in Spring 2018, along with the opening of an exhibition on the same topic curated by Kyllingstad at the University of Oslo, as a satellite to the main exhibit. Lefkaditou has studied the work of American physical anthropologist John Lawrence Angel, who belonged to the group of anti-racist liberal anthropologists in the 1940s-1950s. Lefkaditou examines the complexities of this transitional period, promised to revolutionize the study of human variation by integrating it with the evolutionary synthesis. She is presently writing a paper on the topic. Lefkaditou has also investigated museological issues related to the public communication of the project, regarding displaying and discussing difficult issues and contested heritage, as well as participatory practices and new understandings of the concept of research. She has discussed these issues at international scientific meetings, and are now, on request, writing an article on requested article. She has published the article ?'This wonderful people': Darwin, the Victorians, and the Greeks? i Journal of Modern Greek Studies (2018), and written the book chapter "Yet Another Greek Tragedy? Physical Anthropology and the Construction of National Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century" (in National Races: Scientific Classification and Political Identity, ed. by Richard McMahon, Lincoln: Nebraska University Press). Both address questions relating to the long history behind current arguments and DNA research on the alleged continuity between ancient and modern Greeks. Hallvard Fossheim has recently submitted two articles on ethical issues: ?Research on human remains: an ethics of representativeness?: pending external review for Kirsty Squires, David Erickson and Nicholas Márquez-Grant (edd.), Ethical Challenges in the Analysis of Human Remains, Springer, 2018, and ?Past responsibility: History and the ethics of research on ethnic groups?: currently in process of major revisions before resubmitting to Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Geneticist Erika Hagelbergs contribution to the project has mainly focused on two topics: the history of the aDNA research field and the history of research on the Easter Island population. She is herself a key contributor to these fields. In 2013 she was a main organizer of a a Royal Society Meeting in London entitled "Ancient DNA: the first three decades" and a themed issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. The aim is to write a book on the history of aDNA-research. The Easter Island project deals mainly with how outsiders have (Scientists, explorers, anthropologists) have contributed to establishing a narrative about the origins of the history of the islands population. She has presented results and discussed the topic in both public and academic meetings for example in Chile and on the Easter Island and in an article in Anales del Museo de Historia Natural de Valparaiso. Vol. 29; 104-119. Hagelberg has also been engaged in various public and academic activities adressing issues of jewish identity and history and relations between ideas of jewish identity and genome research.

Genomic research has become "big science", and are, among other things, producing a rapidly increasing amount of knowledge about genetic variation between racially and ethnically defined human populations. This raises some intertwined historical, epistemo logical and ethical questions, which the project will explore. Based on a the conviction that genomic knowledge is neither a simple representation of nature or purely an epiphenomenon of social and political interests, we will explore how social and cult ural constructions of 'ethnicity' and 'race' interacts with the production of scientific knowledge of genetic variation, and discuss normative aspects of these interactions. Acknowledging that human genetic variation research is both a local phenomenon, i nterwoven in various social and cultural contexts, and a global mapping project, we want to shed light on the interconnectedness of local and the global processes influencing the construction of ethnic and racial categories. The project consists of three parts. Sub-project A will explore the continuity or lack of continuity between interwar racial anthropology and contemporary genetic variation research on contemporary and (pre-)historic Scandinavian populations. This includes a study of how the ethnic bo undary between Sami and non-Sami Scandinavians has been conceptualized, and how and to what extent the shifting conceptualizations of ethnic groups have been influenced by, and have influenced on the social, cultural and political sphere. Subproject B wil l explore how the growing internet-based market for the trade of personal DNA-information about origin, kinship and racial and ethnic identity, may influence the identities of individuals and ethnic and racial groups. Project C will draw on these studies and discuss ethical aspects of research on DNA and ethnicity