Mixed Race Studies

Identity Politics and the New Genetics: Re/Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging

Berghahn Books
January 2012
226 pages
tables & figs, bibliog., index
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-85745-253-5

Edited by:

Katharina Schramm, Senior Lecturer of Social Anthropology
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

David Skinner, Reader in Sociology
Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom

Richard Rottenburg, Professor Social Anthropology
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

Racial and ethnic categories have appeared in recent scientific work in novel ways and in relation to a variety of disciplines: medicine, forensics, population genetics and also developments in popular genealogy. Once again, biology is foregrounded in the discussion of human identity. Of particular importance is the preoccupation with origins and personal discovery and the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in social policy. This new genetic knowledge, expressed in technology and practice, has the potential to disrupt how race and ethnicity are debated, managed and lived. As such, this volume investigates the ways in which existing social categories are both maintained and transformed at the intersection of the natural (sciences) and the cultural (politics). The contributors include medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science and sociologists of race relations; together, they explore the new and challenging landscape where biology becomes the stuff of identity.

Contents

• List of Illustrations and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Ideas in Motion: Making Sense of Identity After DNA; Katharina Schramm, David Skinner, Richard Rottenburg
• Chapter 1. ‘Race’ as a Social Construction in Genetics; Andrew Smart, Richard Tutton, Paul Martin, George Ellison
• Chapter 2. Mobile Identities and Fixed Categories: Forensic DNA and the Politics of Racialised Data; David Skinner
• Chapter 3. Race, Kinship and the Ambivalence of Identity; Peter Wade
• Chapter 4. Identity, DNA, and the State in Post-Dictatorship Argentina; Noa Vaisman
• Chapter 5. ‘Do You Have Celtic, Jewish, Germanic Roots?’ – Applied Swiss History Before and After DNA; Marianne Sommer
• Chapter 6. Irish DNA: Making Connections and Making Distinctions in Y-Chromosome Surname Studies; Catherine Nash
• Chapter 7. Genomics en route: Ancestry, Heritage, and the Politics of Identity Across the Black Atlantic; Katharina Schramm
• Chapter 8. Biotechnological Cults of Affliction? Race, Rationality, and Enchantment in Personal Genomic Histories; Stephan Palmié
• Notes on Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index

The Founder Effect and Deleterious Genes

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 30, Issue 1 (January 1969)
pages 55-60
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.1330300107

Frank B. Livingstone (1928-2005), Professor Emeritus of Biological Anthropology
University of Michigan

During the rapid growth of a population from a few founders, a single deleterious gene in a founder can attain an appreciable frequency in later generations. A computer simulation, which has the population double itself in early generations, indicates a lethal could attain a frequency of 0.1. Since deleterious recessive genes are eliminated from large populations at a very slow rate, variations in their frequencies in present major human populations may be due to the founder effect during earlier rapid expansion.

Many distinctive human populations are characterized by the presence of one or more lethal or severely deleterious genes in frequencies which would be defined as polymorphic according to Ford’s (’40) famous definition. The particular genetic disorder, however, varies. The Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania have a gene frequency of 0.07 for the recessive Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, while the Amish as a whole have a frequency of about 0.05 of the recessive cartilage-hair hypoplasia syndrome ( McKusick et al., ’64). Many of the tri-racial isolates of Eastern United States also have a high frequency of a deleterious gene (Witkop et al., ’66). Although such populations are frequently defined by religious or ethnic criteria, there are others not so defined. Several island populations in the Åland archipelago have a gene frequency of greater than 0.1 for von Willebrand’s disease (Eriksson, ’61), and the Boer population of South Africa and some populations of Northern Sweden have frequencies of porphyria much greater than those of other populations (Dean, ’63; Waldenstrom and Haeger-Aronsen, ’67). However, these conditions are dominant and do not have the very severe effects of other hereditary disorders found in high frequencies. On the other hand the population of the Chicoutimi District of Quebec has recently been found to have a gene frequency of about 0.02 for tyrosinemia, which is a lethal recessive (Laberge and Dallaire, ’67).

In most of these cases the population in question has undergone a rapid increase in recent years, and the question arises as to whether this rapid expansion and the original small size of the isolate could account for the high frequency of the deleterious gene. Such an explanation by the founder effect seems obviously to apply to most of the cases cited above, but the founder effect may well be a more general explanation of human gene frequency differences. It is now becoming apparent that the major populations of mankind vary significantly in their frequencies of deleterious genes and that many large populations such as Eastern European Jews have high frequencies of deleterious genes which are found in low frequencies in other populations McKusick, ’66). There have been many attempts to determine how such genes could be polymorphic, for example, Anderson et al. (’67) and Knudson et al. (’67) have discussed cystic fibrosis and Myrianthopoulos and Aronson (’66), Tay-Sachs disease. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to determine the extent to which the founder effect can cause high frequencies of deleterious genes with various models of population expansion.

The occurrence which initiated this research is the gene for sickle cell hemoglobin in the Brandywine isolate of Southeast Maryland. At present the sickle cell gene frequency in this isolate is about 0.1 (Rucknagel, ’64). The high frequencies of this gene in many parts of Africa, India, and the Middle East are now well-accepted as being due to a relative resistance of the sickle cell heterozygote to falciparum malaria. The high frequency in the Brandywine isolate may have a similar explanation, but the surrounding Negro population does not have such a high frequency. And although the endemicity of falciparum malaria in Southeast Maryland in the last century is not known in any detail, it would not appear to have been great enough to explain the high sickle cell frequency in the Brandywine isolate. The isolate also has many other deleterious genes in high frequency (Witkop et al., ’66).

The Brandywine isolate seems to have had its beginning in the early Eighteenth Century when laws were passed to prohibit co-habitation and marriage among races, which prior to then were presumably frequent or at least known. Up to 1720 there were several prosecutions under these laws of individuals with surnames currently present in the isolate (Harte, ’63). Harte (’63) has maintained that the Brandywine isolate is derived from these illegal unions, and Witkop et al. (‘66) show that the most common surname came from such a union. In 1790 the first United States Census recorded 190 persons with the group’s surnames as “other free people,” and since then over 90% of the recorded marriages have been endogamous or between individuals with surnames within the group (Harte, ’59). According to Harte (’59) there are six “core” surnames which have been associated with the group since its founding and comprise 66% of the population and another ten surnames which entered the group after the Civil War, but Witkop et al. (‘66) list seven core surnames and eight marginal ones. The total population of the isolate is now estimated to be 5,128 (Witkop et al., ’66), and the statistics do indicate rapid, if erratic, growth (Gilbert, ’45; Harte, ’63)…

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Treating a medical mosaic, doctors develop a new appreciation for the role of ethnicity in disease

The Globe and Mail
Toronto, Canada
2012-02-15

Dakshana Bascaramurty, Reporter

Baby X is born in a Canadian hospital and her tiny, wrinkled body is placed on a scale that reads 3,061 grams, or 6 pounds and 12 ounces.

Things can go one of two ways for Baby X, whose parents are immigrants from India.

According to the standard birth-weight curves used in Canada, which are modelled after norms for Caucasian newborns, this baby could be labelled as underweight, a classification that comes with a higher risk of death and lower cognitive ability. She could be subjected to a battery of unnecessary tests and follow-ups. Her concerned mother might overfeed her in hopes of speeding up her growth.

Or, if a new birth-weight curve developed at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital – one that takes into account a wide range of ethnicities – is used, Baby X will be classified as having a perfectly normal weight and will be sent home. South Asian newborns are typically smaller than those of many other ethnicities.

It’s just one example of why there is a move in Canada and other countries to collect data on their diverse populations to deliver better patient care.

Doctors and researchers are putting greater stock in ethnicity as a variable in health outcomes. A large body of research suggests certain groups are at a higher genetic risk for particular diseases. And physiologically, what is accepted as “normal” and “healthy” varies between ethnicities.

But there are no universal standards or terms of reference used to classify ethnicity, which has made it a highly fraught subject. Some say it shouldn’t be considered a variable at all, arguing that the link between ethnicity and health is manufactured. The Canadian Institute for Health Information doesn’t collect data on ethnicity, and the Canadian Medical Association has no formal policy on the best way to classify the diverse backgrounds of Canadians.

Joel Ray, who led the St. Michael’s Hospital team that developed the new newborn birth-weight curve, is baffled that an old model developed in 1969 based on the weights of 300 Caucasian newborns in Montreal – a population unreflective of modern Canada – is still used in some parts of the country. In a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, his team analyzed 760,000 live births in Ontario and, by their measure, more than one in 10 South Asian babies was at risk of being misclassified if one of the standard Canadian birth-weight curves was used.

“They’re completely archaic – there’s no other sweet word for it,” Dr. Ray said.

Dr. Ray previously studied rates of gestational diabetes among women of various ethnic groups and found South Asians had the highest risk levels, followed by those from East Asia and the Middle East. Previous studies have lumped these three groups together under the catch-all category “Asian” – missing the heterogeneity within.

“You may as well call them human if you’re going to call someone Asian,” he said…

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Population structure and admixture in Cerro Largo, Uruguay, based on blood markers and mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms

American Journal of Human Biology
Volume 18, Issue 4 (July/August 2006)
pages 513–524
DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.20520

Mónica Sans
Departamento de Antropología Biológica, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación
Universidad de la República

D. Andrew Merriwether
Department of Anthropology
Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York

Pedro C. Hidalgo
Laboratorio de Inmunogenética e Histocompatibilidad
Instituto Nacional de Donación y Trasplante de Células, Organos y Tejidos
Hospital de Clínicas “Manuel Quintela”

Nilo Bentancor
Laboratorio de Inmunogenética e Histocompatibilidad
Instituto Nacional de Donación y Trasplante de Células, Organos y Tejidos
Hospital de Clínicas “Manuel Quintela”

Tania A. Weimer
Laboratório de Biotecnologia Veterinária
Universidade Luterana do Brasil

Maria Helena L.P. Franco
Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Inés Alvarez
Laboratorio de Inmunogenética e Histocompatibilidad
Instituto Nacional de Donación y Trasplante de Células, Organos y Tejidos
Hospital de Clínicas “Manuel Quintela”

Brian M. Kemp
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Davis

Francisco M. Salzano
Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Recent studies of the Uruguayan population revealed different amounts of Amerindian and African genetic contributions. Our previous analysis of Afro-Uruguayans from the capital city of the Department of Cerro Largo showed a high proportion of African genes, and the effects of directional mating involving Amerindian women. In this paper, we extended the analysis to a sample of more than 100 individuals representing a random sample of the population of the whole Department. Based on 18 autosomal markers and one X-linked marker, we estimated 82% European, 8% Amerindian, and 10% African contributions to their ancestry, while from seven mitochondrial DNA site-specific polymorphic markers and sequences of hypervariable segment I, we determined 49% European, 30% Amerindian, and 21% African maternal contributions. Directional matings between Amerindian women and European men were detected, but differences involving Africans were not significant. Data about the specific origins of maternal lineages were also provided, and placed in a historical context.

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The Mulatto a Hybrid-probable extermination of the two races if the Whites and Blacks are allowed to intermarry

The American Journal of the Medical Sciences
Volume 6, Issue 11 (July 1843)
pages 252-256

Josiah C. Nott, M.D.
Mobile, Alabama

The reader will probably be astonished at this late clay to sec so novel an assertion us that the mulatto is a hybrid; but I hope ho will read and ponder upon the diets given below before be concludes that it has no foundation in reason.

A writer in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, under the signature of ” Philanthropist,” has made the following important and interesting statements:—

• “From authentic statistics and extensive corroborating information, obtained from sources, to me of unquestionable authority, together with my own observation, I am led to believe that the following statements are substantially correct.
• 1st, ” That the longevity of the pure Africans is greater than that of the inhabitants of any other part of the globe.”
• 2d, “That the mulattoes, i. e. those born of parents one being African and the other Caucasian or white, are decidedly the shortest lived of any class of the human race.”
• 3d, “That the mulattoes are no more liable to die under the age of 25* than the whites or blacks; but from 85 to 40, their deaths are as 10 to 1 of either the whites or blacks between those ages—from 40 to 55, 50 to 1–and from 55 to 70, 100 to 1.”
• 4th, “That the mortality of the free people of colour in the United States, is more than 100 per cent, greater than that of the slaves.”
• 5th, “That those of unmixed African extraction in the “free states” are not more liable to sickness or premature death than the whiles of their rank and condition in society; but that the striking mortality, so manifest amongst the free people of colour, is in every community and section of the country, invariably confined to the mulattoes.”

The following extracts are from the same writer:—

“It was remarked by a gentleman eminent for his intellectual attainments and distinguished for his correct observation, and who had lived many years in the Southern States, that he did not believe be had ever seen a mulatto 70 years of age.”…

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Race and global patterns of phenotypic variation

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 139, Issue 1 (May 2009) Special Issue: Race Reconciled: How Biological Anthropologists View Human Variation
pages 16–22
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20900

John H. Relethford, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Anthropology
State University of New York, Oneonta

Phenotypic traits have been used for centuries for the purpose of racial classification. Developments in quantitative population genetics have allowed global comparison of patterns of phenotypic variation with patterns of variation in classical genetic markers and DNA markers. Human skin color shows a high degree of variation among geographic regions, typical of traits that show extensive natural selection. Even given this high level of geographic differentiation, skin color variation is clinal and is not well described by discrete racial categories. Craniometric traits show a level of among-region differentiation comparable to genetic markers, with high levels of variation within populations as well as a correlation between phenotypic and geographic distance. Craniometric variation is geographically structured, allowing high levels of classification accuracy when comparing crania from different parts of the world. Nonetheless, the boundaries in global variation are not abrupt and do not fit a strict view of the race concept; the number of races and the cutoffs used to define them are arbitrary. The race concept is at best a crude first-order approximation to the geographically structured phenotypic variation in the human species.

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Racial Classification Regarding Semen Donor Selection in Brazil

Developing World Bioethics
Volume 7, Issue 2 (August 2007)
pages 104–111
DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-8847.2007.00192.x

Rosely Gomes Costa, Pós-doutorado em Ciências Sociais pela
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) e pela Universidade Autônoma de Barcelona (Espanha)

Brazil has not yet approved legislation on assisted reproduction. For this reason, clinics, hospitals and semen banks active in the area follow Resolution 1358/92 of the Conselho Federal de Medicina, dated 30 September 1992. In respect to semen donation, the object of this article, the Resolution sets out that gamete donation shall be anonymous, that is, that the donor and recipients (and the children who might subsequently be born) shall not be informed of each other’s identity. Thus, since recipients are unaware of the donor’s identity, semen banks and the medical teams involved in assisted reproduction become the intermediaries in the process. The objective of this article is to show that, in practice, this represents disrespect for the ethical principles of autonomy, privacy and equality. The article also stresses that the problem is compounded by the racial question. In a country like Brazil, where racial classification is so flexible and goes side by side with racist attitudes, the intermediary role played by semen banks and medical teams is conditioned by their own criteria of racial classification, which are not always the same as those of donors and semen recipients. The data presented in this paper were taken from two semen banks located in the city of São Paulo (Brazil). At the time of my research, they were the only semen banks in the state of São Paulo and supplied semen to the capital (São Paulo city), the state of São Paulo, and to cities in other Brazilian states where semen banks were not available.

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Interethnic diversity of NAT2 polymorphisms in Brazilian admixed populations

BMC Genetics
Volume 11, Number 1 (2010-10-05)
pages 87-93
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2156-11-87

Jhimmy Talbot
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Luiz Alexandre V. Magno
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Cinthia VN Santana
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Sandra MB Sousa
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Paulo RS Melo
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Ronan X. Correa
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Giuliano Di Pietro
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Fabrício Rios-Santos
Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

Background

N-acetyltransferase type 2 (Nat2) is a phase II drug- metabolizing enzyme that plays a key role in the bioactivation of aromatic and heterocyclic amines. Its relevance in drug metabolism and disease susceptibility remains a central theme for pharmacogenetic research, mainly because of its genetic variability among human populations. In fact, the evolutionary and ethnic-specific SNPs on the NAT2 gene remain a focus for the potential discoveries in personalized drug therapy and genetic markers of diseases. Despite the wide characterization of NAT2 SNPs frequency in established ethnic groups, little data are available for highly admixed populations. In this context, five common NAT2 SNPs (G191A, C481T, G590A, A803G and G857A) were investigated in a highly admixed population comprised of Afro-Brazilians, Whites, and Amerindians in northeastern Brazil. Thus, we sought to determine whether the distribution of NAT2 polymorphism is different among these three ethnic groups.

Results

Overall, there were no statistically significant differences in the distribution of NAT2 polymorphism when Afro-Brazilian and White groups were compared. Even the allele frequency of 191A, relatively common in African descendents, was not different between the Afro-Brazilian and White groups. However, allele and genotype frequencies of G590A were significantly higher in the Amerindian group than either in the Afro-Brazilian or White groups. Interestingly, a haplotype block between G590A and A803G was verified exclusively among Amerindians.

Conclusions

Our results indicate that ethnic admixture might contribute to a particular pattern of genetic diversity in the NAT2 gene and also offer new insights for the investigation of possible new NAT2 gene-environment effects in admixed populations.

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Ancestry DNA and the Manipulation of Afro-Indian Identity

Chapter in:
The First and the Forced: Essays on the Native American and African American Experience
2007
285 pages
University of Kansas, Hall Center for the Humanities

Edited by James N. Leiker, Kim Warren, and Barbara Watkins

Chapter pages: pages 141-155

Arica L. Coleman, Assistant Professor of Black American Studies
Unverisity of Delaware

Arica Coleman explains the rise in popularity of Ancestry DNA testing to determine more clearly an ancestral past for African Americans and Native Americans. In this essay, she shows that claims made by commercial companies promising to provide missing evidence for African and indigenous origins are more exaggerated than current genetic technology can deliver. Promises that a DNA test can provide a verification of Native American tribal relationships or define a link to an African tribe are misleading. Coleman argues that Ancestry DNA results are largely based on speculation and can vary from one company to the next. She also asserts that in developing identities, a shared history and ancestral consciousness, including knowledge transmitted through oral history, culture, and daily activities, should not be replaced by genetic technologies.

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Post-Racial? Americans and Race in the Age of Obama

The Greenlining Institute
Berkeley, California
November 2011
26 pages

Dr. Daniel Byrd, Research Director

Bruce Mirken, Media Relations Coordinator

Since the election of Barack Obama as the United States’ first African American president, there has been much discussion of whether this means the U.S. has become a “post-racial” society. Does race still matter in America? This question is particularly significant in light of the fact that within about three decades, people of color are projected to become the majority. Policy based on mistaken assumptions could cripple efforts to revive the U.S. economy. Using the most definitive survey data available, we investigated perceptions of race in America among different racial and ethnic groups and how those perceptions compare to measurable realities of U.S. society.

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Recommendations
• Introduction
  • Methodology
  • America’s Changing Demographics
  • Race Relations in America
  • Perceptions of Discrimination and Inequality in America
  • Race and Health
  • Race and Income
  • Race and Treatment of Groups by the Federal Government
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Summary
  • A Call to Action
• References
• Appendix I
• Appendix II

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