Double Helix History: DNA and understanding of the past

家谱是地球上最大的活动之一。家谱得到了Ancestry.com和Findyourpass.com等大型订阅网站、国家档案馆等大型机构以及一些电视节目和公共历史团体的支持。Ancestry.com等为用户提供了对世界各地数百万条记录的访问，并且提供了一种界面，该界面既鼓励构建巨大的‘树’，也鼓励上传数据以及与其他用户的社交网络交互。可以说，谱系学是人们获取历史的最有影响力的方式，当然也是地球上传播最广泛的公民历史活动。这些网站越来越多地为研究人员的武器库增加了一个新的工具：DNA测序。这位坐在扶手椅上的系谱学家通过在试管中吐痰来调查他们的过去。数据库用户DNA信息库的建立使得数据分析成为可能，这导致了对个体祖先的“科学”推测。这样的排序改变了参与者思考过去和他们自己的方式。与此同时，随着科学家们发现越来越多关于智人这一“物种”的信息，有关“古代”DNA的信息也不断在报纸上被报道。DNA科学正在挤压时间谱的两端，定义几千年前的“人类”，并关注现在人类身份的精确意义。因此，通过对基因科学的理解和使用，人们对过去的理解发生了深刻的变化。因此，这个项目试图思考杰基·皮尔逊和其他人所说的“基因想象”。也就是说，人们对DNA工作的普遍理解，更具体地说，我们可能如何理解、表现和可视化它。该项目尤其感兴趣的是，出于“休闲”目的进行DNA测序--绘制家谱--可能会改变人们看待自己和过去的方式。该项目调查了遗传学和流行的自我和过去叙事的复杂交集。这门科学是如何表现和理解的？它是如何被视觉化的？这对隐私和自我在网上的投射意味着什么？共享DNA数据有什么富有想象力的含义？DNA提供了一种“历史之外”的身份吗？该项目特别试图了解DNA测序如何改变参与者对自己以及他们与过去的关系的看法。

Genealogy is one of the biggest activities on the planet. Genealogy is supported by massive subscription websites like Ancestry.com and Findyourpast.com, by huge institutions like the National Archives, and through a number of TV programmes and public history groups. Ancestry.com and the like provide access to millions of records around the world for the user, and an interface which both encourages the construction of vast 'trees' but also the uploading of data as well as social network interaction with other users. Genealogy, it might be argued, is the most influential way that people access their past, and certainly it is the most wide-spread citizen-history activity on the planet. Increasingly these websites are adding a new tool to the researcher's armoury: DNA sequencing. The armchair genealogist investigates their past by spitting in a tube. The creation of huge repositories of DNA information about database users allows for data analysis to be undertaken, leading to 'scientific' speculation regarding the ancestry of the individual. Such sequencing changes the way that the participant thinks about the past, and about themselves. At the same time, information about 'ancient' DNA is constantly being reported in newspapers, as scientists discover more and more about the 'species' that is homo sapiens. DNA science is squeezing both ends of the chronological spectrum, defining the 'human' thousands of years ago and attending to a precise sense of human identity in the present. Therefore understanding of the past is profoundly changed by understanding of, and use of, genetic science. This project, therefore, seeks to think about what Jackie Pearson and others have termed the 'genetic imaginary'. That is, popular understanding of the work of DNA and, more particularly, how we might understand, represent, and visualise it. In particular, the project is interested in how DNA sequencing for 'leisure' purposes - making a family tree - might change the way that people think about themselves and the past. The project investigates the complicated intersection of genetics and popular narratives of the self and the past. How is this science represented and understood? How is it visualised? What does this mean for privacy, and the projection of the self online? What are the imaginative implications of sharing DNA data? Does DNA render an identity 'outside of history'? The project particularly seeks to understand how DNA sequencing changes the way that participants think about themselves and their relationship to the past.