‘We’ve been here for 2,000 years’: White settlers, Native American DNA and the phenomenon of indigenization

Abstract

Relying on a populace well-educated in family history based in ancestral genealogy, a robust national genomics sector has developed in Québec over the past decade-and-a-half. The same period roughly coincides with a fourfold increase in the number of individuals and organizations in the region self-identifying with a mixed-race form of indigeneity that is counter to existing Indigenous understandings of kinship and citizenship. This paper examines how recent efforts by genetic scientists, working on a multi-year research project on the 'diversity' of the Québec gene pool, intervene in complex settler-Indigenous relations by redefining indigeneity according to the logics of 'Native American DNA'. Specifically, I demonstrate how genetic scientists mobilize genes associated with Indigenous peoples in ways that support regional efforts to govern settler-Indigenous relations in favour of otherwise white settler claims to Indigenous lands.

March/April 2019 Print Issue: From 1969–2019

“…The Mohawk have criticized the formation of the Mikinak and the appropriations of Indigenous belonging, including the legal rights and benefits afforded to Indigenous people in Canada. In other instances, a group of French Canadian settlers tried to use evidence of Indigenous genetic ancestry (also see Leroux 2018) to settle disputes over land tenure as well as hunting and fishing rights, arguing that they are the descendants of people who have occupied the land for millennia.…”

“Pop‐Up” Métis and the Rise of Canada's Post‐Indigenous Formation

“…None of these groups have a connection to the Métis Nation. Leroux () has noted that in Quebec, in particular, such groups rely heavily on family genealogies and, now, DTC genetic ancestry testing to buttress their claims of being Métis on account of their apparent mixedness.…”

Situating Science: Doing Biological Anthropology as a View from Somewhere

“…These practices also work against the survival and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, lending an appearance of scientific legitimacy to the flawed notion that genetic “mixedness” is making Indigenous peoples disappear. Further, because settler society broadly lacks a meaningful understanding of how tribal belonging works, genomics has often enabled the misappropriation of Indigeneity through genetic ancestry testing (Kolopenuk ; Leroux ; TallBear ).…”