Genealogical Links Research Articles

Disappearance of the face: From early photography to facial recognition systems

In this article I analyse the hidden genealogical link between portrait photography, used for criminological and psychiatric purposes, and contemporary systems of biometric identification of the human face. The aim is to highlight the shift between the emphasis on the importance of the human ‘expert eye’ in recognizing the face when talking about nineteenth-century photography and the use of computer technology that produces and reads digital facial images. In both cases, however, these are modes and variants of reducing and flattening the human face; the face itself disappears under the onslaught of technologies of vision and mediation, becoming a mere data set. Special attention is devoted to the pose, the frontal view, which is the technological a priori of the empirical possibility of recognition, articulated through the history of visualization of the face from early portrait photography to facial recognition systems. Consequently, what we call the ‘face’ is a simulacra of individual the face presented to the apparatus: the ‘real’ face is transposed upon multiple technological layers (camera – plates – photographic surface), losing its characteristic features to be re-written according to specific techniques of measurement.

DNA testing for investigative purposes: search for the perpetrator’s DNA profile and kinship analysis = Badania DNA dla celów dochodzeniowo-śledczych – poszukiwania profilu DNA sprawcy i analiza pokrewieństwa

Almost 40 years have passed since Alec Jeffreys’ seminal publications on the use of repetitive DNA marker analysis for human identification. The analysis of STR markers using multiplex PCR methods that followed this discovery has become a standard test for human identification. These methods also have investigative value. They are useful in the search for an unknown perpetrator through mass DNA testing as well as through forensic DNA databases. Another breakthrough is the analysis of long-range relationships. The ability to establish long-range relationships has enabled investigators to find the perpetrator of a crime, even in the absence of investigative hypotheses, by analysing the genealogical links recorded in our genomes. Modern DNA analysis not only provides strong evidence to be presented in court, but can also provide useful investigative leads when the identity of the perpetrator is unknown to the authorities.

Le pouvoir du chérif : perspectives sahariennes (XVIIIe/XIXe siècles)

Abstract This article studies the integration of Cherifian lineage groups into the social fabric of two oasis societies in western Sahara, Touat in southern Algeria and Oualata in Mauritania, during the 18th and 19th centuries. The aim is to consider the šarīf as a social actor distinct from “maraboutic” groups. We argue that Saharan šurafāʾ have a power that, although legitimized by the prestige of the genealogical link with the Prophet, can be articulated independently of the authority conferred by the status of scholar or “saint” (walī). Their power seems to rest primarily on their commitment as community leaders and, above all, on their ability to impose themselves in power relations between lineage groups, including through use of force of arms.

A multiwavelength study of Swift J0503.7-2819: a chimeric magnetic CV

ABSTRACT We present multiwavelength temporal and spectral characteristics of a magnetic cataclysmic variable (MCV) Swift J0503.7-2819, using far ultraviolet and X-ray data from AstroSat, supplemented with optical data from the Southern African Large Telescope and X-ray data from the XMM-Newton and Swift observatories. The X-ray modulations at 4897.6657 s and 3932.0355 s are interpreted as the orbital (PΩ) and spin (Pω) period, respectively, and are consistent with prior reports. With a spin-orbit period ratio of 0.8 and PΩ falling below the period gap (2–3 h) of CVs, Swift J0503.7-2819 would be the newest addition to the growing population of nearly synchronous MCVs, which we call EX Hya-like systems. Hard X-ray luminosity of <2.5 × 1032 erg s−1, as measured with the Swift Burst Alert Telescope, identifies it to be a low-luminosity intermediate polar, similar to other EX Hya-like systems. The phenomenology of the light curves and the spectral characteristics rule out a purely disc-fed/stream-fed model and instead reveal the presence of complex accretion structures around the white dwarf. We propose a ring-like accretion flow, akin to EX Hya, using period ratio, stability arguments, and observational features. An attempt is made to differentiate between the asynchronous polar/nearly synchronous intermediate polar nature of Swift J0503.7-2819. Further, we note that with the advent of sensitive surveys, a growing population of MCVs that exhibit characteristics of both polars and intermediate polars is beginning to be identified, likely forming a genealogical link between the two conventional classes of MCVs.

Romantic Visions of the Village: Tourism, Nationalism, Locality and the Politics of (Non-)Belonging in the Swiss Alps

From the 18th century, Romantic authors came to the Alps to encounter what they described as the Sublime: a delightful form of “horror”. The Alps became a shelter at the margins of civilization where rural, farming and authentic values were “still” shaping life, in comparison to the decaying life in the urban centres of Europe. Based on thirteen months of fieldwork in the touristic resort of Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps, in this paper, I propose to the trace the historical development of the alpine village and its connection to Romantic sensibilities between past and present. I first trace the genealogical links between the alpine locale and Romantic imaginaries in processes of touristification and nation-state building. In a second part of the article, I turn back to the present to interrogate the experiences of village inhabitants. I show how Romantic visions of rooted belonging and cultural difference participate in feelings of cultural alienation and the reassertion of unequal politics of (non-)belonging differentiating between local, national and foreign dweller.

WHAKAPAPA: Our ways of knowing, being and doing

The beauty of te ao Māori is the pragmatic fluidity of many of our concepts. Generally employed to explain our genealogical links and connections to land, whakapapa can also be applied within the context of rangahau to organise, structure, analyse and understand information, experiences and relationships. This article introduces Te Waka Pounamu, a whakapapa-based framework developed as a methodological research model for my doctoral studies. Included in the whakapapa framework is a tikanga Māori model I have named Te Tuamaka. This model is the practical aspect of the theoretical whakapapa framework in that it guides and supports the ways my rangahau will be carried out. The following discussion introduces and demonstrates how Te Waka Pounamu and Te Tuamaka promote Māori ways of knowing, being and doing as valid methodological approaches to rangahau.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Governmentality: An Unwritten Chapter in Foucault’s Genealogy of the Modern State

ABSTRACT One of the productive political-philosophical concepts Foucault developed is that of governmentality. According to Foucault, governmentality is in many respects the heir of pastoral power. However, Foucault has never conclusively demonstrated the genealogical link between pastoral power and governmentality. The hypothesis that I want to put forward is that the “missing link” in this genealogy should be situated in the governmental transformations that took place in the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, more specifically in the period of the “confessionalization”. To substantiate this claim, I briefly discuss the ideal-typical relationship between pastoral power and governmentality while indicating how Foucault accounts for this relationship. I then criticise his account by showing that it fails to expose the genealogical link between pastoral power and governmentality. Finally, I show how, from a genealogical point of view, the confessionalization theory makes a convincing connection between the revival of pastoral power during the Reformation and the development of a “confessional governmentality” in which religious and secular authorities intersect.

One donor egg and ‘a dollop of love’: ART and de-queering genealogies in Facebook advertising

We consider what genealogical links, kinship and sociality are promised through the marketing of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). Using a mixed method of formal analysis of Facebook's algorithmic architectures and textual analysis of twenty-eight adverts for egg donation drawn from the Facebook Ad Library, we analyse the ways in which the figure of the ‘fertile woman’ is constituted both within the text and at the level of Facebook's targeted advertising systems. We critically examine the ways in which ART clinics address those women whose eggs they wish to harvest and exchange, in combination with the ways in which Facebook's architecture identifies, and sorts those women deemed of ‘relevance’ to the commercial ART industry. We find that women variously appear in these adverts as empowered consumers, generous girlfriends, potential mothers and essentialised bodies who provide free-floating eggs. The genealogical and fertility possibility offered through ART is represented with banal ambiguity wherein potentially disruptive forms of biogenetic relatedness and arrangements of kinship are derisked by an overarching narrative of simplicity and sameness which excludes men, messy genealogies and explicitly queer forms of kinship. This rationalisation is supported by the simplicity and certainty of the Facebook targeted advertising algorithm which produces a coherent audience and interpellates users as fertile subjects whose choices are both biologically determined and only available through clinical intervention.

Entangled histories of place and reconfigurations of diasporic home: Al‐Andalus history and the Moroccan diaspora in Granada, Spain

AbstractIn this paper, I contribute to scholarship on diasporic geographies of home and develop ideas around “diaspora transregions” and “diaspora cities.” To do this, I examine Moroccan diaspora formations in the city of Granada in the south of Spain. I utilise the spatiality and history of Granada to reveal complex interpretations of diasporic home. In particular, I examine how the Muslim history of Al‐Andalus – which is intimately embedded in the urban landscape of Granada and also entangled into the history of the wider region – impacts on Moroccan diaspora consciousness. This involves examining how histories and geographies of Al‐Andalus are interpreted and experienced by those in the Moroccan diaspora, which in this analysis is a diasporic population primarily from northern Morocco. I analyse four intersecting impacts of history and place, including nostalgia and imagined geographies, religious and genealogical links to Granada and the wider region, identification with culture and the built environment, and finally the ambivalence of history on belonging. What this examination reveals is that the history of Al‐Andalus and an identification with historical circular migrations between northern Morocco and southern Spain can engender a sense of being part of multiple diasporic journeys and settlements, and subsequently a ‘homing desire’ to multiple spaces. A key contribution here is the illustration of how entangled urban and regional histories can reconfigure more normative notions of the diaspora condition. Diasporic connections to deep histories of place and migration can rework senses of home and refute notions of a linear homing desire to a singular nation‐state. This demonstrates that diasporic belongings are not always limited to the parameters of the nation, but rather are informed by the intersections of urban and regional cultures, religions, and histories.

Marae Ora Kāinga Ora: Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Solutions via Time-Honored Indigenous Spaces

Marae Ora, Kainga Ora (MOKO) is a three-year research study established as a marae-led intervention project to strengthen the provision of housing with five urban marae in South Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. In brief, marae are primarily places for cultural gatherings and are the centres of activity for Māori communities. Though just one of the marae involved is part of a pre-European tribal settlement, the four other marae were established to meet the cultural needs of Māori who had relocated many decades ago from their tribal areas outside of the Auckland region. The project works with Marae Research Coordinators (MRC) nominated by each marae to build research and development capacity and capability through the sharing of skills, information, and resources. Each MRC is affiliated with their respective marae, either through whakapapa (genealogical links) or through their contributions of service and leadership. The role of the MRC is critical in capturing the lived realities, experiences, and aspirations of their marae community. This was evident in the first year of the project (2020) when three of the five marae actively responded to the needs of their communities during COVID-19 lockdowns in Auckland. While the project has a housing focus, the marae involved demonstrate, in their own distinctive ways, how health and wellbeing is intrinsic to their core function.

Ancient Structures of West Moana: Observing the Tombs, Mounds and Forts

This paper will observe three ancient structures of Western Oceania and analyze their social significance and historic impacts on the native civilizations therein, alongside their relationships with each other among Western Moana cultures. Additionally, this paper will focus primarily on the early kingdoms of Tonga, Sāmoa, Wallis and Futuna; exploring the native land structures of the Star Mounds and Pulemelei mound of Sāmoa, Fort Talietumu in ‘Uvea (Wallis) and royal burial tombs of the Tu’i Tonga in Lapaha, Tongatapu. As researchers who have genealogical links to these sights, we tell this story.

Indonesian vs. Bribri: Striking Lexical Similarities In Two Unrelated Languages

Despite the fact that Indonesian and Bribri belong to two different language families and are spoken on opposite sides of the world, their lexicons contain many words that are strikingly similar. In this paper I anayze the origin of three word pairs from these languages that not only sound similar, but also have almost exactly the same meaning: (1) Indonesian kulit and Bribri kuö́lit ‘skin, hide, leather, crust, shell, bark, rind, peel’, (2) Indonesian kutu and Bribri kú̱ ‘louse’, and (3) Indonesian kupu-kupu and Bribri kua’kua ‘butterfly’. The intention is not to propose any genealogical link between the Austronesian and the Chibchan language families, but rather to show how phonological, morphological and semantic properties can converge in two unrelated languages and produce this kind of eye-catching similarities.

The Bohras as Neo-Fāṭimids: Documentary Remains of a Fāṭimid Past in Gujarat

Abstract This article traces the remains of Fāṭimid chancery documents, and the writing practices that surround them, among the Bohras of Gujarat. As Shiʿi Ismaʿilis, the Bohras consider themselves heirs of the Fāṭimid Imāmate (909–1171). Whereas other Ismaʿili communities, such as the Nizārīs, claim their genealogical link to the Fāṭimids through the presence of a living Imam, the Bohras legitimize their “Neo-Fāṭimid” identity through a living Arabic Ismaʿili manuscript culture. While the philological link between the Bohras and the Fāṭimids has hitherto been acknowledged through the mobility and preservation of these manuscripts, their use of documents, however, and its potential Fāṭimid influences, has remained unexplored. Based on ethnographic observations and archival research among the ʿAlawi Bohras of Baroda, I suggest that practices from the Fāṭimid chancery continued in Yemen and Gujarat in the post-Fāṭimid world, and continue to survive today in the Bohra community’s documentary culture.

The Rong Ngeng of the Andaman Coast: History, Ecology, and the Preservation of a Traditional Performing Art

Abstract This article examines recent grassroots strategies for preserving traditional performing arts along southern Thailand’s Andaman Sea Coast, focusing on rong ngeng, an idiomatic form of social dance and music, widely popular there in the post-World War Two years. Between 1935 and 1960 a small, mixed cohort of rural performing artists created networks of communities, scattered on Thai-Andaman, with a distinctive regional culture based in the shared repertoire of songs and dances they adapted, created an innovative lyrical style called phleng tanyong (Tanyong song), and a star system that turned village performers into local celebrities (Ross 2017, 68). More than a mere vibrant, short-lived micro-tradition which declined in the wake of a growing, hegemonic pan-Thai performing arts culture, however, rong ngeng has, since the 2000s, experienced a revival. The new incarnation was tied to economics, nostalgia, and a reawakening of local identity. Using a broadly cultural ecology approach which draws on more than a decade of fieldwork in the Thailand-Malaysia border region, oral accounts of rong ngeng performers, past and present, and comparisons with performance practices across the regions, this paper argues that efforts toward revival and sustainability have seen their greatest success among communities that possess several characteristics, including strong historical and genealogical links to erstwhile cultural practices, participatory forms of entertainment, and the ability among its members to articulate the relevance of performing arts to the society-at-large.

Excavating the Modern Self: Haggard’s Egyptological Romances

Henry Rider Haggard’s Egyptomania took many shapes, from regular journeys to Egypt to extensive collections of ancient Egyptian artefacts. This article looks more particularly at Haggard’s representation of ancient Egypt in his literary works and at the implications of his narrative choices in the scientific and imperial context in which he wrote his Egyptological romances. By establishing genealogical links between ancient Egypt and modern Britain through the literary form of archaeological fiction, Haggard constructs a palimpsestic vision of individual and collective history that can be read both in psychoanalytical and in imperial terms. This paper examines the place Egypt occupies in Haggard’s imagination by considering some of the narrative and narratological elements shared by his Egyptological romances, with a particular focus on The Ancient Allan and “Smith and the Pharaohs”. The depiction of Egypt as an oneiric place located within the Victorian mind and as the origin of a layered modern identity suggests an ambivalent interpretation of Haggard’s imperialist stance at the turn of the twentieth century.

The Changamirian offshoots in South Africa: The case of the Valoyi of Limpopo Province

Several studies that have been conducted about the Changamire society fall short of fully explaining this ancient society’s direct impact on the current Southern African ethnological landscape. Although a number of studies conducted in South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe show various societies may have emerged from the Changamire, these studies rarely give a clear chronology regarding the emigrations from this ancient society. This article uses oral historical methodology to explore the migration history and some genealogy of the Valoyi of Limpopo as one of the Changamire offshoots in an attempt to give a lucid chronology of events pertaining to one of this ancient society’s traceable offshoots. Orla testimonies, conversations, anecdotes and interviews are used to collect oral data. Using oral accounts and available literature, the article outlines a movement of the Valoyi from the country of the Changamire in the present-day Zimbabwe to the present-day Mozambique and later to South Africa’s Limpopo Province, where they are currently found. Following latest trends in oral history, collected data are subjected to oral historical methodology, privileging the voice of the narrator. Collected voices are triangulated with other voices and available secondary data, although there are limited written sources available. By employing oral historical methodology, the study contributes to indigenous methodologies and narrative methods of data collection and analysis, mainstreaming neglected indigenous discourses and epistemologies. Contribution: This study broadens the debate on the role of oral history to document genealogical links within cross border historiography, especially documented fragmented communities separated by different colonial regimes.

An Overview of the BALSAC Population Database. Past Developments, Current State and Future Prospects

The BALSAC database, developed since 1971, contains data on the Quebec population from the beginnings of European settlement in the 17th century to the contemporary period. Today, BALSAC is a major research infrastructure used by researchers from Quebec and elsewhere, both in the social sciences and in the biomedical sciences. This paper presents the evolution and current state of the database and offers a perspective on forthcoming developments. BALSAC contains marriage certificates until 1965. Coverage is complete for Catholic records (80 to 100% of the population depending on the region and the period) and partial for the other denominations. Birth and death certificates from all Catholic parishes have been integrated for the period 1800–1849 and work in underway for 1850–1916. All the records entered in BALSAC are subject to a linkage process which, ultimately, allows the automatic reconstitution of genealogical links and family relationships. The basic principle has remained the same since the beginning, namely to match individuals based on the nominative information contained in the sources. The changes made in recent years and the resulting gains are mostly related to IT advances which now offer more flexibility and increased performance. Future perspectives rest on the diversification of the sources of population data entered or connected to the database and, as a corollary, by continuous optimization of data processing and linkage procedures. In the era of 'big data', BALSAC is gradually moving from a historical population database to a multifaceted infrastructure for interdisciplinary research on the Quebec population.

Mapping co-ancestry connections between the genome of a Medieval individual and modern Europeans

Historical genetic links among similar populations can be difficult to establish. Identity by descent (IBD) analyses find genomic blocks that represent direct genealogical relationships among individuals. However, this method has rarely been applied to ancient genomes because IBD stretches are progressively fragmented by recombination and thus not recognizable after few tens of generations. To explore such genealogical relationships, we estimated long IBD blocks among modern Europeans, generating networks to uncover the genetic structures. We found that Basques, Sardinians, Icelanders and Orcadians form, each of them, highly intraconnected sub-clusters in a European network, indicating dense genealogical links within small, isolated populations. We also exposed individual genealogical links -such as the connection between one Basque and one Icelandic individual- that cannot be uncovered with other, widely used population genetics methods such as PCA or ADMIXTURE. Moreover, using ancient DNA technology we sequenced a Late Medieval individual (Barcelona, Spain) to high genomic coverage and identified IBD blocks shared between her and modern Europeans. The Medieval IBD blocks are statistically overrepresented only in modern Spaniards, which is the geographically closest population. This approach can be used to produce a fine-scale reflection of shared ancestry across different populations of the world, offering a direct genetic link from the past to the present.

Let's Talk: African Caribbean Women, Mothering Motherhood, and Well-Being.

In the UK, African Caribbean women's experiences of mothering and motherhood are often studied in isolation from how “race” structures and shapes their lives and everyday health and well-being. This failure to connect women's wellbeing and racialized injustices also occurs in debates around “gangs” and “urban gun crime” (UGC). The women's experiences and the effects on their health and well-being are absented from the discussions. This paper, based on my doctoral research, uses an intersectional analysis to explore the views of mothers engaged in community activities to limit “urban gun crime.” Like me, they defined themselves as of Black Caribbean heritage and we created “spaces” where we could “reason,” share experiences of womanhood, motherhood and mothering in a racist society and centre what is habitually ignored. They highlight the importance of getting mothering “right” with the stress and anxiety about the dire consequences of getting it “wrong.” They show their love, commitment and aspirations for their child/ren and the emotional and intellectual labor needed in their daily strategies to keep them from harm caused by state institutions and life “on road.” The research confirms the impact of “race,” racialization and racism to our lives and experiences of health and well-being and raises critical questions for the dominant and normative views of mothering and/ or motherhood that underpin UK policy and practice.

Best Practice Model with BPM Approach in the Determination of Genealogical Links

Best Practice Model with BPM Approach in the Determination of Genealogical Links