Standard Research Grant: A longitudinal study of the role of expert knowledge in the interpretation and reception of genetic information 

This project was carried out by a team of intra-disciplinary (biological, social, and cultural anthropologists) and cross-disciplinary (geographer, biologist, and statistics consultant) researchers at the University of Tennessee, University of Oregon, University of New Mexico and Universidad Nacional de Lujan in Argentina. We were interested in exploring to what extent expert scientific knowledge had an impact on how Argentine adults in a well-established community near the city of Buenos Aires received and interpreted the results of genetic ancestry tests. We wanted to gauge whether being in possession of genetic ancestry information made a difference in the construction of the participants' individual and collective identities. To accomplish this ambitious proposal, we established an academic partnership with Universidad Nacional de Lujan (UNLu) and aimed at DNA sampling a total of 300 volunteer participants from three age cohorts (young [18 to 30 years], intermediate [31-50 years], and older [51 to 70+] adults), with women and men equally represented in each cohort. The research team was able to obtain viable samples from 293 volunteers, mainly residents of two different historical neighborhoods in the same town. Each participant received (a) uniparental results (Y chromosome testing done on males and mitochondrial DNA testing that can be done on either sex), and (b) single nucleotide polymorphism testing or SNP results (these tests evaluate large numbers of variations across a person's entire genome, which are compared with those of others who have taken the tests to provide an estimate of a person's ethnic background). The individual reports also discussed the procedure to conduct genetic ancestry testing and a number of limitations in the analysis of genetic results. Reports were distributed in Spanish, modeling the content available on reports produced by the National Geographic's Genographic Project. A sub-sample of 80 participants agreed to be interviewed in-depth three times, first during data collection, then during reception of the results, and lastly after the participant had time to reflect on their genetic ancestry information. Thus, the researchers used multiple field data collection methods including statistical, genomic, and ethnographic methods to document the role of experts in the interpretation and reception of information about human genetic variation. A bilingual website (www.cei-ar.org) was created to inform the community about our project, update its activities, and communicate with the participants. The aggregated results of the project were shared with participants and other members of the community through public interactive exhibits held at the local historical museum and on the main hallway of UNLu. Many efforts were made to publicize these events thru local newspapers, the university broadcast channel, and postal mailing. Overall, content analysis of individual interviews indicate that the participants were more interested in the patterns of SNP information than on uniparental results. Generally, SNP patterns confirmed oral tradition kept in the families, and the participants were satisfied with their results, although most participants ignored small (or unknown) percentages from continents/geographic regions other than those remembered by family lore. Mitochondrial DNA test results representing single ancestral lines indigenous from the Americas were also largely ignored. Nonetheless, at the community level, the presentation of aggregate analysis of individual results initiated a conversation about the town's shared identity. This questioning was expressed in articles published by a local newspaper (Papaleo 2007, 2018), and in the Sunday Magazine of a major national newspaper (Mealla 2019). Both articles highlighted that SNP results from over half of the total sample of individuals with European ancestry also had some proportion of Native American ancestry. In sum, the project inspired collective discussions about local historical processes that rendered invisible ancestors who were of indigenous and/or African descent. This project also produced critical conversations among the researchers about how to proceed with transcultural communication of scientific results, how to convey to the public the strength and weakness of genetic information, the limitations of current data bases, and the value of personal vs. aggregated results. Our team has presented these topics in several conferences and academic meetings, and has also presented some preliminary genetic results at the level of the population. These components of the scientific analysis are still in progress.

References

Mealla, Alan (2019) Lujan. Buscan reconstruir el ADN de una de las ciudades mas antiguas del pais. La Nacion Revista, 2 de abril [print edition].

Papaleo, Horacio (2017) Un estudio sobre ancestralidad pone en debate la identidad local. El Civismo, 30 de diciembre [online edition].

Papaleo, Horacio (2018) Un estudio arrojo luz sobre los ancestros. El Civismo, 6 de enero [print edition].

Last Modified: 08/24/2019
Modified by: Graciela S Cabana