CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Mediukova, Anna |
|---|---|
| Title | The Role and the Place of Genetics in Modern Debates on Jewishness |
| Summary | Over the past few years, genetics and genetic analysis have become a popular new tool for population-based historical research. Thus, a study of Jewish origin and kinship between major groups has dispelled many myths and prejudices that have existed for a long time. At the same time, the use of genetic analysis at the academic level leaves questions, doubts, and creates a gap in the study of large and small Jewish groups, which directly affects the private level. The popularity of recreational genetics and the growing number of private commercial genetic laboratories allow people to find out information about the origin, but the quality, accessibility, and truthfulness of such information is not controlled, which can have a certain effect on people's self-perception and self-identification. The present thesis investigates how genetics affects the modern understanding of Jewishness in general and what it tells us about Jewish self-perception and self-determination. Based on theoretical analysis and expert opinion obtained through interviews with genealogists and employees of private commercial genetic laboratories and with people who have done DNA testing for origin, this work claims that genetic research creates a new approach to understanding Jewishness and building self-perception using DNA testing. Moreover, for many, the results of genetic testing seem objectively scientifically true and indisputable, although genetic analysis has a lot of shortcomings, simplifications, and inaccuracies. This study examines for the first time the reasons why, despite abuses genetics researches on the past, the genetics argument gaining popularity among population and used as a new tool on scholar level on the Jewish case. |
| Supervisor | Miller, Michael Laurence |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/mediukova_anna.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University