Naming the dead: DNA-based identification of historical remains as an act of care

Abstract

Empirical knowledge of how DNA matching for identifications following mass fatality events is used, and how it interacts with existing social practices and values, is important not only to enlarge our understanding of the technology but also to inform normative thinking about its use. This paper draws on preliminary empirical material from a study of World War I dead at Fromelles to consider DNA matching as an act of care. Family members' involvement in the process of identifying historical human remains may be a way to demonstrate care toward a vulnerable subject, or toward the past and present family, as much as it is a way to confirm an individual's death. Framing DNA donation as an act of care enables it to be analyzed from the perspective of the ethics of care, thereby highlighting ethical issues of relationality, power, and obligation, which have relevance to the normative evaluation of the technology.