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As molecular techniques become more advanced, scientists and practitioners are calling for restoration to leverage genetic and genomic approaches. We address the role of genetics in the restoration and conservation of cutthroat trout in the western United States, where new genetic insights have upended previous assumptions about trout diversity and distribution. Drawing on a series of examples, we examine howgenetically puretrout populations are identified, protected, and produced through restoration practices. In landscapes that have been profoundly impacted by human activities, genetics can offer seemingly objective metrics for restoration projects. Our case studies, however, indicate that (1) genetic purity is fragile and contingent, with notions of what genetics are “pure” for a given species or subspecies continually changing, and (2) restoration focused on achieving “genetically pure” native populations can deliberately or inadvertently obscure the socioecological histories of particular sites and species, even as (3) many “genetically pure” trout populations have endured on the landscape as a result of human modifications such as roads and dams. In addition to raising conceptual questions, designations of genetic purity influence policy. These include tensions between restoring connectivity and restoring genetic purity, influencing Wild and Scenic River Act designations, and the securing of water rights. Cutthroat trout restoration would benefit from adopting a broader, more holistic framework rather than fixating exclusively or primarily on genetic purity and hybridization threats.
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Genetic syncretism: Latin American forensics and global indigenous organizing
Abstract In the 1970s, Latin America became a global laboratory for military interventions, the cultivation of terror, and ideological and economic transformation. In response, family groups and young scientists forged a new activist forensics focused on human rights, victim-centered justice, and state accountability, inaugurating new forms of forensic practice. We examine how this new form of forensic practice centered in forensic genetics has led to a critical engagement with Indigeneity both within and outside the lab. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with human rights activists and forensic scientists in Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico, this paper examines the relationship between forensic genetics, Indigenous organizing, and human rights practice. We offer the concept of ‘genetic syncretism’ to attend to spaces where multiple and competing beliefs about genetics, justice, and Indigenous identity are worked out through (1) coming together in care, (2) incorporation, and (3) ritual. Helping to unpack the uneasy and incomplete alliance of Indigenous interests and forensic genetic practice in Latin American, genetic syncretism offers a theoretical lens that is attentive to how differentials of power embedded in colonial logics and scientific practice are brokered through the coming together of seemingly incompatible beliefs and practices.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1944981
- PAR ID:
- 10321652
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- BioSocieties
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1745-8552
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-021-00263-3
