Constructing Masculinity through Genetic Legacies: Family Histories, Y-Chromosomes, and “Viking Identities”

Abstract

Abstract:The contemporary popularity of genetic genealogy has been accompanied by concerns about its potential reifying of identity. This has referred in particular to ethnicity, but also to gender, with fears that looking at the past through the lens of popular genetics reinforces patriarchal views of the family and traditional heteronormative understandings of masculinity and femininity. This study investigates whether such understandings are drawn upon by male participants in a population genetics study. Discursive analysis of 128 responses to a participant motivation survey and 18 follow-up interviews explores how participants construct masculinity when discussing genetics and their own family history. It is argued that while there is some evidence for the "patriarchal" argument, a subtler form of masculine legacy creation and maintenance is the primary narrative.

I am a Viking! DNA, popular culture and the construction of geneticized identity

“…In the UK, several research projects have combined surnames and Y-chromosomal haplogroups in search for male lineages that are traceable to medieval times. These projects have focused on Northwestern England-historically known for its Viking influence during medieval times-and used "Viking" as a sign in their academic and public communication (Sykes and Irven 2000;Nash 2004;King 2013, 2016;Scully 2018). 5.…”

Ghost Lineages, Ghost Acres, and Darwin’s “Diagram of Divergence of Taxa” in On the Origin of Species

“…Patrilineal pedigrees that assign women to subsidiary roles as mothers and daughters under a ramifying patronymic grid are a significant and telling example (for a history, see Klapisch-Zuber, 1991, p. 108; Mitchell, 2014; for a contemporary instance from the realm of genetic genealogy, see Scully, 2018). Most diagrams of family pedigrees during the Victorian period in which Darwin lived saw lines of sons and fathers given pride of place -patrinominalism, patrilineality, and patriarchy all reinforcing one another in concert with a wider cultural dedication to paternity as that socially fashioned, sanctioned, and naturalized tether that could legitimate property inheritance (see Delaney, 1986).…”