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<b>Please join us on Monday, February 11th:<br><br>
<div align="center"><font size=4>STS Special Lecture<br><br>
</font><font size=5 color="#0000FF">The Genetic Articulation of
Indigeneity<br><br>
</font><font size=5>Kimberly Tallbear<br>
</font><font size=4>University of California, Berkeley<br><br>
4:00 pm, MIT, E51-095<br><br>
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Abstract:<br>
</b>Through the 19<sup>th</sup> century, it was generally agreed that the
Indian represented an earlier stage of human evolution and that his end
in the face of western progress was inevitable. Fast forward to the 1970s
and 1980s and “indigenous” movement emerged in force, with many
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other groups in the U.S. and
abroad organizing under that rubric. Today, worldwide estimates range
from 250 to 600 million individuals belonging to over 4,000 indigenous
groups. Estimates are based upon particular understandings of
indigeneity that emphasize historical continuity, ancestral territories,
cultural distinctiveness, economic and cultural non-dominance, and
self-determination as peoples. As we usually read it, indigeneity depends
upon a particular type of indigenous/settler dichotomy. Although it has
libratory potential in many places, in others it is contested and
problematic for describing the subjectivities of peoples, specific
colonial histories, race regimes, and power relations. I have long been
interested in the trade-offs of “indigeneity,” even for U.S.-based Native
Americans who also operate within an intergovernmental framework with the
United States. We who identify/are classified as indigenous do not
alone control its meaning. Yet precisely because indigeneity promises so
much to so many who are disempowered, interrogating it is no
straightforward ethical task. What is at stakewhat is risked in
the production of that category and its common definitions? <br>
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The larger body of my work maps out the world of “Native American DNA” as
a research object and life-organizing narrative for scientists,
genealogists, and other consumers of “genetic ancestry” tracing
technologies. I have come to interrogate indigeneity as a genetic
category, and do so within a very different ethical framework, one in
which not indigenous peoples, but scientists and genetic genealogists
(mostly self-identified, racially white, middle-class individuals) are my
research subjects. Using “articulation theory,” I describe how
indigeneity is articulated in the service of anthropological and human
genetic diversity research. I examine the ways in which indigeneity
as a concept can work both for and against indigenous claims.<br><br>
<br>
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Debbie Meinbresse<br>
STS Program, MIT<br>
617-452-2390<br>
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