© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2003, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

FROM THE GUEST EDITORS

How will new ways of mapping the human genome change theway we think about our identities? The answer depends on whatsort of identity you have in mind, and who exactly you mean by‘we.’ Genetics has the potential to change the way people thinkabout their ethnic identities, their religious identities, and theirnational, tribal, and caste identities. Yet, just what these changesmight be is far from clear. This thematic issue of Developing WorldBioethics is a start at exploring some of the issues for identity raisedby one type of genetic information: using the techniques of population genetics to trace genealogies. It concentrates especiallyon questions relevant to populations in the developing world.

Genetic ancestry tracing raises a number of broad, philo-sophical questions about identity. The first concerns the limits ofthe technology. Most current studies map markers either on theY-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA, each of which will give an individual information about one – but only one – of manygenetic lines. Such a study will connect an individual to onegenetic ancestor out of hundreds or thousands, but it will be silenton the rest of an individual’s genetic heritage. What does it mean,for example, to know that one out of thousands of your ancestorsoriginated in a certain part of west Africa? How individuals andgroups process limited information about genetic ancestries, whatthey make of this information, and how, if at all, they incorporateit into their identities is only beginning to be explored.

A second question concerns the balance between genetics andother markers of identity, such as a shared language, cultural tradition, or historical narrative. This may be a question about anindividual’s identity. When it comes to deciding whether an indi-vidual counts as Lemba, Jewish, Eskimo, or Dalit, how importantis their genetic constitution? But the same kinds of questionsmight arise for group identity. For example, genetic ancestrytracing may corroborate a group’s traditional narrative abouttheir origins, or it may also undermine it. What if your group’sorigin stories say you come from one part of the world, but thepopulation geneticists say you come from another? Genetic infor-mation may be important for some individual or group identitiesand irrelevant to others.

Developing World Bioethics ISSN 1471-8731 (print); 1471-8847 (online)Volume 3 Number 2 2003

A third question concerns the potential conflicts over groupmembership. Who gets to make decisions about the identity of agroup? For example, it is enough that the Lemba and the BeneIsrael claim to be Jewish, or do they need to be able to prove thatthey are? What do other Jews make of the claim? How shouldthese conflicts be sorted out? If there is a conflict over the rolethat genetics should play in deciding identity questions, whosedecision has authority?

A final question concerns the role of genetic ancestry tracingin questions of social justice. In the past, genetics has been usedto reinforce racist ideologies. Some people worry that geneticancestry tracing will bolster or revive discrimination based onrace, caste, or other social categories whose legitimacy rests onmaking judgements about biological differences. How likely is thispossibility, and to what extent should it raise suspicion amonggroups that have been the object of social discrimination in thepast? Is genetic ancestry tracing misguided genetic essentialismor merely another tool for tracing human history?

Many of the papers in this thematic issue were discussed inmeetings of a project based at the University of Minnesota titled‘Ethnicity, Citizenship, Family: Identity after the Human GenomeProject.’ That project was funded by National Human GenomeResearch Institute grant R01-HG02196-01, whose support wegratefully acknowledge.

JOSEPHINE JOHNSTONCARL ELLIOTT

iv FROM THE GUEST EDITORS

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2003