Doctoral Dissertation Research: Kinship Relations and Genetic Testing Technologies among Adult Adoptees

直接面向消费者（DTC）基因检测的引入从根本上改变了出生家庭搜索的格局。该奖项支持的研究将调查DNA测试加强或挑战家庭，身份，公民身份和归属感的现有框架的规模。从人种学的角度来看，它侧重于话语，实践和政策周围的DTC基因检测技术所使用的成年被收养人。除了为人类学研究生提供实证，科学数据收集和分析方法的培训资金外，研究人员还将为政策制定者，政府官员，社会工作者，教育工作者和研究人员提供指导手册，以了解基因检测和出生家庭搜索经验的影响。这个博士论文研究项目询问DNA测试如何加强或挑战家庭，身份，公民身份和国家的现有框架，重点关注历史上高度集中的收养和DTC基因检测技术在被收养者中的广泛使用的研究背景。参与者观察将与四个为被收养者和出生家庭提供基因检测服务的组织进行。DNA测试有可能暴露个人、家庭和国家范围内的创伤，并提出重大的社会、法律的和道德问题。在这个社会行动者和机构的网络中，这项研究询问DNA是如何被想象、构建和部署的，以产生个人和公众对身份、亲属关系、公民身份、归属和记忆的知识。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The introduction of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetics testing has radically altered the landscape of birth family search. The research supported by this award will investigate the scales at which DNA testing reinforces or challenges existing frameworks of family, identity, citizenship, and belonging. Ethnographically, it focuses on the discourses, practices, and policies surrounding DTC genetic testing technologies used by adult adoptees. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the researcher will produce a guidebook for policymakers, government officials, social workers, educators, and fellow researchers to understand the implications of genetic testing and the birth family search experience. This doctoral dissertation research project asks how DNA testing reinforces or challenges existing frameworks of family, identity, citizenship, and the nation, focusing on a research context with a historically high concentration of adoptions and the proliferating use of DTC genetic testing technologies among those adoptees. Participant observation will be carried out with four organizations that offer genetic testing services to adoptees and birth families. DNA testing has the potential to expose trauma on individual, familial, and national scales, as well as raise significant social, legal, and moral questions. Across this network of social actors and institutions, this research asks how DNA is being imagined, constructed, and deployed to produce personal and public knowledge of identity, kinship, citizenship, belonging, and memory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.