Researchers Reconstructing Genome of Extinct Human Population Using 1000 Genomes Data (October 14, 2011, GenomeWeb Daily News) is a perfect example of the conflation of the notion of a genetic population with a cultural group. I'd like to see an original publication. Is this idea coming from the reporter more than the scientists, or from both? Below, I truncate some of the choice quotes:

Researchers have started to reconstruct the genomes of individuals from an extinct indigenous population known as the Taino, who lived in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and Lesser Antilles before the Caribbean was colonized by Spanish settlers in the 1500s. The Taino population appears to have become extinct within around 100 years after they came into contact with Europeans...The team found genomic patterns that corresponded to the three-way European, African, and Taino ancestry that exists in the Puerto Rican population...The overall sequence patterns in the Puerto Rican genomes point to a rapid decline in the Taino population...as evidenced by a pulse of Taino ancestry that seems to have percolated down through the Puerto Rican population over time.

I am no expert on the politics of Taino identity. I understand in basic terms that the "extinction" of Taino is contested, and that there are individuals and groups that identify in some way as Taino, or as indigenous to Puerto Rico. What this article says to me is that we are to take the presence of genetic ancestry in "Puerto Rican genomes" from Africa and Europe in greater percentage as meaning that Taino don't exist. Not that having genetic ancestry alone from pre-contact indigenous groups (especially absent social affiliations) should be conflated with an indigenous identity. But what is interesting about this article is that I've seen scientific communities also conflate in that way too. These correlations of genetic population with cultural group identity just seem so arbitrary.

And one more question: aside from a purported decimation of Taino identity, what does the "extinction" narrative do, and how does it fit with a narrative of amalgamation or mestizo identity? That's a genuine question. If anyone out there is writing about the cultural politics of Taino genome research, please comment here with links.

Below is a flyer from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) about a panel on which I will speak. My talk will take off from other panelists' legal, historical, and sociological analyses to ask how "blood" differs from "DNA" and what are the consequences for tribal sovereignty?

From blood to DNA, from “tribe” to “race” in tribal citizenship
This talk will compare symbolic blood as it has been used in 20th and 21st-century U.S. tribal enrollment with the more recent advent of DNA testing for enrollment. I briefly examine both “Indian blood” and “tribe-specific blood” and compare these concepts with that of the “DNA profile” that is increasingly used in enrollment in concert with existing blood rules. How might DNA testing influence how we understand “Native American” as a racial category? I argue that genetic practices are more likely to “racialize” Native American citizenship than are current blood rules alone, and this is more harmful to tribal sovereignty than are blood concepts of identity.

OAK to ABQ: Flying to Albuquerque this afternoon to speak tomorrow at DCI America's Annual Tribal Enrollment Conference about the perils and opportunities in DNA testing as part of tribal enrollment. First time ever attending a meeting at a Hard Rock Hotel. Not a typical venue for an academic. Not sure I'm cool enough to hang there. But it promises to be a very interesting meeting and I'm looking forward to hearing about how tribal enrollment directors are managing DNA testing.

This is a big change of venue from last week where I had the privilege of speaking to Chris Coggin's and Katie Boswell's Proseminar students at Bard College at Simon's Rock about ethics in genome research on indigenous peoples. They were a delightful group of undergraduates--so smart, engaged, and not cynical. They gave me great peer review as well, nailing me but productively on my imprecise use of "ethics" in my talk. Plus Great Barrington, Mass. is just a stunning location. And has great coffee. Check out Fuel.