Abstract

This article, inspired in science and technology studies, revisits the hypothesis of a possible "geneticization" of social life, produced by the use of DNA tests in the judicial investigation of paternity. We consider the test's production and effects, first, in light of the evolution of scientific technologies providing proof of paternity, second, in the context of practices of government aimed at facilitating a population's "legibility" and, finally, as seen through impact on the material and affective ties within certain contemporary families. This analytical trajectory highlighting the contextual subtleties of local worlds leads us to question perspectives based on a social/biological divide. Focus on ethnographic detail suggests, rather, that it is largely the mundane elements of everyday existence that mediate the impact of globalized technologies.

Keywords:
Science and technology studies; Actor-network theory; Kinship; Paternity; DNA