Biopower, genetics and livestock breeding: (re)constituting animal populations and heterogeneous biosocial collectivities

Genetic techniques have become increasingly prevalent in livestock breeding, associated with new types of knowledge-practice and changes in the institutional and geographical relationships related to animal husbandry. This paper examines the value of Foucault's concept of 'biopower' to theorising livestock breeding and the implications of the rise of genetic knowledge-practices in agriculture, developing the concept to apply to nonhuman animals and to situations where humans and nonhuman animals are co-constituted through particular knowledge-practices and corporeal meetings. It focuses on the idea of 'population' as a central component of biopower, and relates this to conceptualisations of biosocial collectivity. Reacting to the inherent humanism of Foucault's outlining of biopower, the paper argues for its relevance in relation to nonhuman populations, and for heterogeneous conceptualisations of biosocial collectivity. Drawing on research with UK beef cattle and sheep breed societies, the paper explores how, in practice, populations are constructed in relation to the production of particular sorts of truths concerning, and particular modes of intervention in, the lives of nonhuman animals. It explores how heterogeneous biosocial collectivities are constituted around these interventions. The emergence of genetic techniques is shown to transform the processes constituting populations and heterogeneous biosocial collectivities, and this is discussed in terms of a new inflection of agricultural biopower associated with novel interventions in the lives of livestock animals.     

Evaluating Ancient Whale Exploitation on the Northern Oregon Coast Through Ancient DNA and Zooarchaeological Analysis

Whales have long been an important part of Pacific Northwest Coast human subsistence and lifeways. Native peoples on the Oregon Coast were not known to hunt whales, but a humpback whale phalange with an embedded bone harpoon at the Par-Tee site (35CLT20) and ethnographic accounts raised the possibility of opportunistic whale hunting. We analyzed a suite of whale remains from Par-Tee and performed ancient DNA-based species identifications on 30 specimens. The assemblage includes gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus, 60.7% of the assemblage), humpbacks (Megaptera novaeangliae, 32.1%), minkes (Balaenoptera acutorostrata, 3.6%), and orcas (Orcinus orca, 3.6%). While the species composition is similar to those found in archaeological deposits from systematic whaling areas in Washington and Vancouver Island, bone modification patterns and element representation reveal important differences. Our analysis demonstrates that whales were likely a supplementary part of human subsistence at Par-Tee and, while opportunistic whale hunting likely occurred, it may have been secondary to scavenging and utilization of beached and/or drift whales.     

Gendered geographies of genetic variation: sex,power and mobility in human population genetics

This article explores the ways in which geographies of human genetic variation are increasingly differentiated in terms of gender, and the ideas of reproduction, sex, power and mobility that underpin their interpretation. It thus seeks to extend recent work on the ways in which the ideas of race and relatedness are being shaped by recent accounts of human genetic variation and evolutionary history within human population genetics by exploring the gendered and sexual imaginaries of this field. At the same time, it seeks to extend feminist geographical work on social reproduction by attending to the figuring of reproduction itself. The article focuses on accounts of the geographies of Y-chromosome variation and the differences between the geographies of Y-chromosome variation and mitochondrial variation, and explores the degree to which this work is underpinned by, and potentially reinforces, particular accounts of gender, sex and the reproductive strategies of women and men. More specifically, I argue that despite some differences between the perspectives of those involved, much of this work deploys a model of male sexual competition that is at the heart of claims about the universal and determined fundamentals of reproduction, and indeed all social life, within evolutionary psychology. Gendered geographies of human genetic variation are being used as evidence for hitherto asserted but unproven claims about human nature. This article is a critical feminist engagement with the renaturalisations of culture within this strand of human population genetics.     

On the probable genotype of domestic cats in ancient Egypt

Genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that the majority of mummified ritual cats (Felis libyca subsp.) in ancient Egypt carried the t⁺ allele and exhibited the striped tabby phenotype. A few of these ritual cats, however, appear to be F. chaus subsp., most likely carried the T^a allele and were characterized by the Abyssinian phenotype. Several types of evidence suggest that the T^a allele first became fixed in a Felis sp. population in either southeast Asia or northeast Africa. A number of Felis subspecies appear to be plausible candidates for the population of T^a origin.     

New Meanings in the Archive: Privacy,Technological Change and the Status of Sources**

This essay reflects on how technological changes in biomedicine can affect what archival sources are available for historical research. Historians and anthropologists have examined the ways in which old biomedical samples can be made to serve novel scientific purposes, such as when decades-old frozen tissue specimens are analyzed using new genomic techniques. Those uses are also affected by shifting ethical regimes, which affect who can do what with old samples, or whether anything can be done with them at all. Archival collections are subject to similar dynamics, as institutional change and shifts in ethical guidelines and privacy laws affect which sources can be accessed and which are closed. I witnessed just such a change during my research into human genetics using archives in the Wellcome Collection. A few years into my project, those archives had their privacy conditions reassessed, and I saw how some sources previously seen as neutral were now understood to contain personal sensitive information. This paper describes the conditions of this shift—including the effects of technological change, new ethical considerations, and changing laws around privacy. I reflect on how these affected my understanding of the history of human genetics, and how I and others might narrate it.     

A new miniSTR heptaplex system for genetic fingerprinting of ancient DNA from archaeological human bone

The analysis of short tandem repeats (STRs) is a useful tool in various contexts of ancient DNA research. Main applications are the reconstruction of kinship, identification, and authentication. Here we describe a short amplicon autosomal short tandem repeat (miniSTR) heptaplex system for the amplification of D13S317, D21S11, D18S51, TH01, D5S818, FGA and Amelogenin from highly degraded DNA as an inexpensive alternative to commercially available kits. All primers were newly designed and the amplicon length of all systems is less than 200 bp, with the exception of some rare alleles in the FGA and D21S11 systems. To validate the suitability of this system for typing STRs from human specimens with low DNA preservation we systematically tested it on 20 skeletal samples from four archaeological sites representing different burial environments and time spans since death. Finally, to test the sensitivity of the heptaplex system, we analyzed serial dilutions of control DNA and ancient DNA extracts. Using the system we were able to reproducibly obtain full STR profiles, down to a concentration of 0.06 ng DNA. Even with 0.004 ng DNA partial profiles could be amplified. The accumulated power of discrimination for the six selected STR loci is 0.99999984, plus the option of genetic sex determination through Amelogenin. The tests conducted prove that the system presented is efficient and especially suited for cases where STRs have to be typed and sex has to be assessed from human specimens with highly degraded DNA.