There have been plenty of hot takes in attempting to defend Elizabeth Warren and her claims of Native American ancestry, but this is 2018, so you get things like this from Alondra Nelson, president of the Social Science Research Council and a professor of sociology at Columbia
Elizabeth Warren and the Folly of Genetic Ancestry Tests
This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts announced that geneticists had analyzed her DNA and proved her longstanding claim that she has Native American ancestry. Senator Warren had caved in to months of ridicule by President Trump, who mocked her using a racist term and ultimately refused to believe her “useless†DNA test.
The question is not whether her DNA analysis is accurate. It’s whether it can tell us anything meaningful about identity. The truth is that sets of DNA markers cannot tell us who we really are because genetic data is technical and identity is social. The science in question is a form of chromosome mapping similar to that used in the billion-dollar genetic ancestry testing industry in the United States. That testing draws on incomplete data about human genetic diversity.
In this case, the “reference set†included samples drawn from 37 people “from across the Americas with Native American ancestry.†Nevertheless, this genetic analysis did locate five chromosome segments that strongly suggest indigenous ancestry. In his report, the geneticist Carlos Bustamante of Stanford University cautioned that it did not “provide complete coverage of all Native American groups.†This is a limitation of the technology, but it also has political implications.
Indigenous communities have long engaged in a “politics of refusal,†according to a Mohawk anthropologist, Audra Simpson. They have opted out of research and commercial endeavors that seek to assemble genetic samples of their communities. And they refuse to support practices that reduce Native American ancestry, culture and history to mere segments of DNA. Tribal sovereignty and indigenous authority determine membership and indigenous understandings of community.
Senator Warren’s genetic-ancestry results suggest she has a Native American ancestor, most likely more than six generations back. But a few segments of a person’s genome that indicate she may have indigenous ancestry does not make her Native American. To be Native American is to be a member of a tribal community and recognized by that community as such. DNA cannot vouchsafe tribal identity or any other community affiliation.
Well, in that case, Warren’s claims are fraudulent, as no Native America groups are providing membership to Fauxahontas.
When we’re faced with difficult issues about the past that bear on the present, it is tempting to take these tests as proof of identity. But these genetic tests cannot confirm social dynamics. Identity is socially, politically and legally determined, even if shaped by genetics. Yet, genetic ancestry testing does not offer insights about these dynamics. So we can’t look to DNA to settle debates about identity.
In all fairness, if Prof. Nelson is attempting to defend Senator Warren, she’s not doing a very good job. But this is less about actually defending Warren than it is about propping up the notion of Identity. This is how we get nutters believing they are the opposite biological sex, and saying they are black when they clearly aren’t. How you get a “trans man” identifying as a dog.
