What Does It Mean to Give Away Our DNA?

The Experiment

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🗓️ 28 October 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Just as the Navajo researcher Rene Begay started to fall in love with the field of genetics, she learned that the Navajo Nation had banned all genetic testing on tribal land. Now she is struggling to figure out what the future of genetics might look like, and whether the Navajo and other Indigenous communities should be a part of it. Further reading: “Race, Genetics, and Scientific Freedom,” “Return the National Parks to the Tribes,” “The Search for America’s Atlantis,” “Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Is Not Her Identity” A transcript of this episode is available. Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com. This episode was produced by Peter Bresnan and Julia Longoria, with help from Tracie Hunte and Alina Kulman. Editing by Jenny Lawton and Emily Botein. Fact-check by Michelle Ciarrocca. Sound design by David Herman, with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Transcription by Caleb Codding. Special thanks to Pauly Denetclaw. Music by Keyboard (“Ojima,” “Staying In,” and “Being There”), Naran Ratan (“Jam for Bwengo”), Parish Council (“It’s Purple, Not Blue,” “Durdle Door,” and “Scented Letters”), R McCarthy (“Contemplation at Lon Lon”), and Column (“スキャン｢Scan｣”), provided by Tasty Morsels. Additional audio from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can you introduce yourself? Who are you and what do you do?
0:16.9	So my name is Renee Begay and I will introduce myself in Navajo as well. So Yatesh, a Renee
0:27.3	Begay and Shia, Totsuo Nidishik, Ashtab, Washiqin, Tachin, Tachin, Tachie, Kiyonin, Tishinala,
0:32.4	Telenadet, Nasha. So I just told you my four plans in Navajo.
0:38.9	Renee Begay says she thinks about her plans a lot and not just in her Navajo world but in
0:45.7	her professional world too. Because genetics, it's about relatives, it's about the future
0:51.5	generation. She's a geneticist and family really is everything to her. So when you hear
0:58.5	someone say those plans to you, what goes through your mind? I'm thinking about how they are
1:05.6	related to me. Yes, I have one biological mother but I could have multiple mothers which
1:10.4	is my aunt's. You know, Navajo translation, they're like little moms.
1:14.8	So in this like initial introduction, you're sort of trying to see if your blood related
1:21.8	somehow. Is that right?
1:25.0	Yeah, I wouldn't characterize it as blood necessarily because I think blood is kind of really
1:32.3	loaded term and I wish it wasn't that way.
1:40.2	I wanted to talk to Renee because being both Navajo and a geneticist is a pretty rare combination.
1:49.4	The Navajo nation actually banned genetic research from taking place at all on tribal
1:54.8	lands. So Renee sits at the center of two worlds that have been at odds with each other for
2:01.6	a long time. But recently, the US government has tried to change that.
2:08.4	They conducted these engagement meetings in the city and this was in Denver.
2:15.5	In 2019, government officials invited Native Americans to a meeting in a federal building
2:21.6	in downtown Denver to essentially make a pitch to them for a new ambitious genetic research
2:27.9	program. This was obviously right up Renee's alley so she decided to go.
	...

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