American Indian Genes in the Media: Representations of the Havasupai Indian Tribe in Their Case against Arizona State University

Abstract

The misuse of genomic information has generated considerable concern in American Indian and Alaska Native communities. To understand how issues of genomic research misuse are understood by the public this article focuses on the case brought against Arizona State University by the Havasupai Indian Tribe. To understand how the Havasupai was being framed in the print media, this article examines newspaper articles (N=59) from when the story broke in 2004 until 2019. Our findings suggest that news media rarely engaged the concept of sovereignty and framed the story as an issue of research and scientific ethics.