Appearance and origin: The depoliticization of genetic privacy in France

Joëlle Vailly (1)

1 IRIS - Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux Sociaux - sciences sociales, politique, santé

This article discusses DNA tests used by the police and justice systems in France to predict a suspect’s appearance or origin. It focuses on the effects of different conceptions of privacy when genetic information enters the semipublic domain. I analyze how a contemporary process of racialization is fostered by the combination of a concept of privacy founded on visibility andDNA-based technologies of appearance. Drawing on 35 interviews with the various professionals involved (police officers, geneticists and experts, and judges), I show first the preponderance of a depoliticized point of view connecting privacy with secrecy and obscuring the risks of stigmatizing populations. I then analyze the scientific relationship between what is visible and what lies inside the body, offering an understanding of the aporia of norms based on appearance and how, despite certain contradictions, geneticists contribute to the process of racialization. Finally, I explain how this process develops further when information moves from the world of science to the worlds of the police and the media. In conclusion, I argue that the existence of these technologies transforms normative frameworks and, by focusing attention on what is visible, makes tests connecting crime, origin, and DNA acceptable by depoliticizing them.

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Sociologie

Joëlle Vailly. Appearance and origin: The depoliticization of genetic privacy in France. Current Anthropology, 2022, 63 (6), pp.637-659. ⟨halshs-02930935⟩