Aboriginal Claims: DNA Ancestry Testing and Changing Concepts of Indigeneity

Abstract

in THE LAST FIFTY YEARS, THE NUMBER OF NORTH AMERICANS claiming Aboriginal heritage has increased dramatically. This is not a product of high birth-rates, but is because previously non-Aboriginalidentified people are coming to identify as Aboriginal.1 Although stereotypes of Aboriginal people as noble, spiritual, and connected to nature are not new,2 evidence suggests that non-Aboriginal identified people are increasingly viewing Aboriginal heritage as desirable and are seeking out evidence of some Aboriginal ancestry.3The dramatic increase in claims to Aboriginal heritage by previously nonAboriginal-idcntified people raises questions about how these individuals and others view the legitimacy of the new claims. As Canada and the USA are colonial nations, North American Aboriginal identity is deeply political and has historically been contested and managed through identity legislation4 as well as coercion and violence.5 In the contemporary context, the legitimacy of claims to Aboriginality has important practical and political implications in terms of state benefits, sovereignty, tribal registration, and social relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.The emergence of the genetic-ancestry-testing industry provides a new avenue for people to claim Aboriginal heritage and identity. Today more than thirty companies offer to test individuals' DNA and send them a report stating, for example, what proportion of their ancestry is Native American or trace the Native American tribes from which they descend. With this information, test-takers can also trace new lines of ancestry to previously unknown distant relatives, often claiming new ethnic and racial identities in the process.Genetic-ancestry testing also shapes notions of legitimacy in terms of making claims to a particular identity or heritage. Many test-takers see DNA ancestry tests as a way to offer 'proof of their Native American ancestry. The tests' scientific nature appears to offer consumers a sense of objectivity. Although the tests and the direct-to-consumer testing industry have themselves been widely criticized, test-takers view them as more reliable than traditional methods of demonstrating ancestry, which they see as flawed by the selfserving interests of colonial identity legislation. As a result, more people than ever before are accessing and claiming this newly desirable identity.In this essay, we ask what Indigenous identities mean in the genomic age when people who previously did not identify as Aboriginal can claim Aboriginal group membership on a genetic level. We examine how people who take genetic-ancestry tests conceive of Aboriginality and the legitimacy of those who claim it. When Aboriginal identities are increasingly desirable and accessible, the right to legitimate claims-making also becomes more competitive. If every person in North America were considered legitimately Aboriginal, the identity claim would no longer be meaningful. This creates a need to measure the legitimacy of mixed-ancestry people's claims to Aboriginal identity, even among those who make putative claims themselves.We draw on data from a qualitative study with ill people who have taken DNA ancestry tests. Many of those individuals identified as part-Native American before taking a test, while others did not identify racially or ethnically as Aboriginal but believed they had some Native American heritage which genetic-ancestry testing could help them confirm. Several test-takers also discovered Native American heritage that they did not expect.Test-takers claiming Aboriginal ancestry in our study distinguish three discursive levels of authentic Aboriginality.6 The first level is made up of 'Wannabes', whom test-takers see as the least legitimate. Having heard rumours in their family of a distant Aboriginal ancestor, wannabes call upon this connection to give them access to Indigenous identity and/or heritage, but have little to offer by way of proof. …