Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

In recent years, DNA tests that generate personalized genetic ancestry stories through the use of biogeographical categories have become increasingly popular. Although this genealogical practice is often described as a form of recreational genetics, it is undoubtedly a “deep play”(Geertz, 1973 in Salvucci, 2018). This is because, in the moment in which “the globalised rhetoric of technoscience meets the intimacy of personal genealogies” (Nash, 2004 in Tyler, 2008), who owns the use and control of genetic technology also dominates the definition of identities (Hauskeller, 2013). Employing discourse analysis and netnography, the purpose of this paper is to use the decolonial perspective to study the identity representations developed by MyHeritage. In particular, I analyze the genetic ancestry company’s website and blog, and some marketing resources including advertisements and promotional videos. Results show that the company builds a contradictory identity imagery not free of forms of essentialisation and racialization.