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The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson
nuhafariha's review against another edition
3.0
While impressive in its scope and ability to show interconnections between science and politics in very different areas like reparations, the book could have been longer and substantiated more instead of using stories. It wavered between being a sociology book or a pop culture book and in the end, didn't really satisfy either.
poenaestante's review
5.0
"...the double helix works a spyglass that telescopes back in time allowing us to see the healing that remains to be achieved in American society."
The Social Life of DNA is a wonderful book that explores the history/significance of DNA testing for African-Americans and at the same introduces a much-needed critique of the ways in which it's been received and put to use. It is at once an academic and personal journey with interesting twists and turns.
If I have any complaint, it's that the whole thing was far too condensed. It was evident from every page that Nelson had a LOT more to say (heck she was introducing new terms and dropping footnotes in the last paragraph of the book). So I'd hope one day to read the "Directors Cut", since I'm certain there's lots more fascinating material on the cutting room floor!
The Social Life of DNA is a wonderful book that explores the history/significance of DNA testing for African-Americans and at the same introduces a much-needed critique of the ways in which it's been received and put to use. It is at once an academic and personal journey with interesting twists and turns.
If I have any complaint, it's that the whole thing was far too condensed. It was evident from every page that Nelson had a LOT more to say (heck she was introducing new terms and dropping footnotes in the last paragraph of the book). So I'd hope one day to read the "Directors Cut", since I'm certain there's lots more fascinating material on the cutting room floor!
satsumaorange's review
5.0
This past academic year I took a class called Biotechnology and Society, which quickly became one of the best classes of my entire academic career. The capstone of the class was based on Nelson's book, and I'm so glad it was. Nelson's insightful writing style asks the reader to reflect on every page. We read different attitudes and perspectives on DNA ancestry testing, not just one argument pushed throughout the whole book. I loved the nuance and care Nelson used when writing The Social Life of DNA, acknowledging diverse opinions and allowing the readers to put together a conclusion themselves.
mckenzierichardson's review
3.0
I received a copy of this book from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.
This is a very interesting topic and Nelson covers it well. Overall, I liked the book. I think the sections on reparations were especially interesting in the brief history given and how DNA has been used in connection with reparations.
I like how Nelson combined her own personal experience with the history of DNA and how it has been used in matters regarding race. This added an individualized tone to the text, which helped to balance out the science and history.
While I found the information in the book useful, the text was often very dense and the amount of information was overwhelming. It took me almost a month to get through this book, which is significantly longer than it usually takes me to finish a book, especially considering how short the book is. This is not a book one can just speed read through. I liked the book, but some of the chapters are kind of hard to get through because of their density.
This is a very interesting topic and Nelson covers it well. Overall, I liked the book. I think the sections on reparations were especially interesting in the brief history given and how DNA has been used in connection with reparations.
I like how Nelson combined her own personal experience with the history of DNA and how it has been used in matters regarding race. This added an individualized tone to the text, which helped to balance out the science and history.
While I found the information in the book useful, the text was often very dense and the amount of information was overwhelming. It took me almost a month to get through this book, which is significantly longer than it usually takes me to finish a book, especially considering how short the book is. This is not a book one can just speed read through. I liked the book, but some of the chapters are kind of hard to get through because of their density.
zoes_human's review
4.0
Alondra Nelson has done an exemplary job of breaking down incredibly complex social and scientific topics into language a layman can understand without oversimplifying. While it was a bit dry at times, The Social Life of DNA was replete with information. It was so dense with knowledge that it took me thrice the normal time to read.
Not only do I feel that I have learned something about genetics and genealogy, I have, more importantly, come to a greater understand of the cultural significance of these studies in the black community. I have long understood the theft of culture and family from Africans and African-Americans as a part of the many horrors of slavery. What I had failed to understand was how emotionally significant an ethnic identity can be to a person. In particular a person for whom this identity has not only been taken but replaced with an identity as victim.
This has given me a great deal to process for which I thank the author.
I received a complimentary copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway. Many thanks to all involved in providing me with this opportunity.
Not only do I feel that I have learned something about genetics and genealogy, I have, more importantly, come to a greater understand of the cultural significance of these studies in the black community. I have long understood the theft of culture and family from Africans and African-Americans as a part of the many horrors of slavery. What I had failed to understand was how emotionally significant an ethnic identity can be to a person. In particular a person for whom this identity has not only been taken but replaced with an identity as victim.
This has given me a great deal to process for which I thank the author.
I received a complimentary copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway. Many thanks to all involved in providing me with this opportunity.
vgartner's review
5.0
"The Social Life of DNA" is an academic/historic look into how DNA genealogies have been used by African Americans interested in identifying the African nations from which their ancestors were taken in the transatlantic slave trade. There's also a good bit on the legal efforts to seek reparations from both the U.S. government and various business that profited from and enabled slavery in the U.S., which was fascinating (high school history classes sure didn't cover the role of Aetna's life insurance policies on enslaved people's lives in making slavery economically viable!).
While this is an impeccable work of scholarship, it wasn't as fun to read as our previous book club choice, "Superior" by Angela Saini. It's pretty dense! I don't think I've ever read a legitimate nonfiction social science/African American studies book like this, so that's entirely reflective of my own reading history and not the book itself!
I did really enjoy reading the anecdotes from various people Nelson had interviewed over her many years studying this scene. And though Nelson does reveal her personal feelings obliquely throughout the book, she only explicitly lays out what's what in the final chapter (which was probably my favorite). Her position was put most simply on page 165 of the paperback version (emphasis mine), "Reconciliation projects spurred by DNA testing may be starting points for such dialogues, but we cannot rely on science to propel social change."
My favorite passage was on the previous page (emphasis mine), "Those instances in which genetic science fails to fully resolve these concerns suggests that what is sought are not genetic facts as proof in injury or vectors of repair, but rather reconciliation in its fullest sense. The repair that is sought cannot necessarily be found in genetic science solely. DNA can offer an avenue toward recognition, but cannot stand in for reconciliation: voice, acknowledgment, mourning, forgiveness, and healing. These reconciliation efforts also raise interesting and fraught contradictions: they threaten to reify race in the pursuit of repair for injury; they suggest how the pursuit of justice can be easily intertwined with commercial enterprises; they may substitute genetic data for the just outcomes that are sought; and, indeed, they demonstrate well that facts may not, in and of themselves, secure justice."
Note: read for fall 2020 IDEA book club.
While this is an impeccable work of scholarship, it wasn't as fun to read as our previous book club choice, "Superior" by Angela Saini. It's pretty dense! I don't think I've ever read a legitimate nonfiction social science/African American studies book like this, so that's entirely reflective of my own reading history and not the book itself!
I did really enjoy reading the anecdotes from various people Nelson had interviewed over her many years studying this scene. And though Nelson does reveal her personal feelings obliquely throughout the book, she only explicitly lays out what's what in the final chapter (which was probably my favorite). Her position was put most simply on page 165 of the paperback version (emphasis mine), "Reconciliation projects spurred by DNA testing may be starting points for such dialogues, but we cannot rely on science to propel social change."
My favorite passage was on the previous page (emphasis mine), "Those instances in which genetic science fails to fully resolve these concerns suggests that what is sought are not genetic facts as proof in injury or vectors of repair, but rather reconciliation in its fullest sense. The repair that is sought cannot necessarily be found in genetic science solely. DNA can offer an avenue toward recognition, but cannot stand in for reconciliation: voice, acknowledgment, mourning, forgiveness, and healing. These reconciliation efforts also raise interesting and fraught contradictions: they threaten to reify race in the pursuit of repair for injury; they suggest how the pursuit of justice can be easily intertwined with commercial enterprises; they may substitute genetic data for the just outcomes that are sought; and, indeed, they demonstrate well that facts may not, in and of themselves, secure justice."
Note: read for fall 2020 IDEA book club.
zararah's review
5.0
Loved this - fits squarely in my favourite genre of science/tech/non-fiction writing, ie. accessible, well-researched, human stories, while explaining and illustrating the (often complex) tech issues at hand.
archytas's review
4.75
This is one of those books whose impact feels more significant as I get further from the reading of it. Nelson delves into the multifaceted world of personal DNA testing by African-Americans, examining both how this intersects with personal identity, and legal truths needed to progress reparations processes.
Most discussions of race and DNA testing revolve around the potential damage that bad, or overly simplified, science in this area can do to people of colour. Nelson is one of the few publishing around the ways that people of colour engage actively with genetic testing., and how DNA might be used to combat, rather than exacerbate, racism. In Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History, Nelson looked at processes ranging from identifying victims of Apartheid, through to the mixed role of DNA in criminal justice processes. Here, she zeros in on the use of the DNA to re-establish links with an African past. This is, in many ways, a more nuanced topic, because while DNA testing for the above uses is scientifically straightforward, its use to understand ancestral connection is much more scientifically ambiguous.
Nelson's approach is grounded in the sociology of the community engaging with the tests. She balances explanations of the science, and the challenges, with exploration of the motivations and processes of those involved in this. The result may not always be a smooth read, but it is always an engaging one, and left me more unsettled than I expected.
In one of the clearest explanations of the limitations of matrilineal and Y-DNA testing, Nelson explains:
Most discussions of race and DNA testing revolve around the potential damage that bad, or overly simplified, science in this area can do to people of colour. Nelson is one of the few publishing around the ways that people of colour engage actively with genetic testing., and how DNA might be used to combat, rather than exacerbate, racism. In Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History, Nelson looked at processes ranging from identifying victims of Apartheid, through to the mixed role of DNA in criminal justice processes. Here, she zeros in on the use of the DNA to re-establish links with an African past. This is, in many ways, a more nuanced topic, because while DNA testing for the above uses is scientifically straightforward, its use to understand ancestral connection is much more scientifically ambiguous.
Nelson's approach is grounded in the sociology of the community engaging with the tests. She balances explanations of the science, and the challenges, with exploration of the motivations and processes of those involved in this. The result may not always be a smooth read, but it is always an engaging one, and left me more unsettled than I expected.
In one of the clearest explanations of the limitations of matrilineal and Y-DNA testing, Nelson explains:
"Each genetic lineage is estimated to provide less than 1 percent of one’s total ancestry. Put another way, these analyses follow ancestry of a single individual back ten generations and more than one thousand ancestors, yet matrilineage and patrilineage testing only offer information about a portion of these. If we think of one’s ancestry as an upside-down triangle, these forms of ancestry tracing follow the lines to the left and right of the triangle point, but offer no details about the shape’s filling."
Or another way to put this, some contemporary African-Americans are descended from more than 1000 enslaved people*, generally coming from diverse parts of the African continent. Efforts to re-establish a sense of where you are "from" is inherently complicated by the long history of slavery, and the havoc it wrought upon culture, and connection to country. Nelson doesn't regard her subjects as unknowing of this - she is at pains to point out how skilled at research family historians are - but rather examines how finding some connection to place, even in tenuous (limited sampling also results in a high error rate) and select ways. The persistence of this need, and the courage and determination in the face of it - has stayed with me, long after the book was finished.
Nelson looks at the ways that researchers choose between options to find a connection with meaning, and how this is chosen to change - or not - a sense of self. She touches delicately but firmly on the issue of how governments, such as Sierra Leone, are offering dual citizenship to "DNA Citizens" and the presence of philanthropy in these discussions.
Nelson also covers the ridiculous issue of how DNA testing can be used to further reparations cases brought by African Americans against companies which profited from slavery. (It is not the reparations which are ridiculous, but the need to establish a scientific basis for African-Americaness, and hence proof of connection to slavery).
You can at times feel Nelson's ambiguity in this space - the understanding of the role of connection, and the agency involved in pursuing technology, but also the dangers of reducing race to a genetic, rather than social, phenomenon. She sums this up the eminently quotable:
"... contemporary racial politics have begun to move into the terra nova—if not the terra firma—of genetic genealogy.
*Many will have European ancestors as well, and most will have cross-over in lineages, making the overall total less.
**2019 Reading Challenge #8. A book about a hobby