Genealogical Journeys, Geographical Imagination, and (Popular) Geopolitics in Who Do You Think You Are?

ABSTRACT

Genealogy is now a global industry, accounting for $3 billion every year in the US market alone. Enhanced via public record digitisation, crowd-sourced data input, and consumer genetics testing, interest in one’s ancestral roots has never been higher. Recognising the public interest in personal lineages, the BBC launched the docuseries Who Do You Think You Are? in 2004. Focusing on celebrities’ family backgrounds and how their hitherto-unknown forebears’ experiences shaped their lives and careers, the format was quickly adapted for other national audiences with nearly 20 versions around the world. This article examines the phenomenon of mediated genealogical research through the twinned prisms of race and postcolonialism. Employing close readings of episodes from the American (Emmitt Smith) and South African (Jabulani Tsambo/HHP) adaptations, as well as the original British series (Naomie Harris), this intervention interrogates the ways in which power and privilege in white settler colonies are unpacked through carefully-curated spatial narrations of private pasts meant for popular consumption. Using approaches drawn from more-than-representational geography, I view these seemingly ‘individual’ performances of genealogy as instead affect-inducing ‘collective’ journeys to sites of pain, prejudice, and power(lessness), which in turn serve to shape transnational perceptions of place and space.

Resumen

La genealogía es ahora una industria global, que representa $ 3 mil millones cada año solo en el mercado estadounidense. Mejorado a través de la digitalización de registros públicos, la entrada de datos de fuentes múltiples y las pruebas de genética del consumidor, el interés en las raíces ancestrales nunca había sido tan alto. Reconociendo el interés público en los linajes personales, la BBC lanzó la serie documental Who Do You Think You Are? (¿Quién te crees que eres?) en 2004. Centrándose en los antecedentes familiares de las celebridades y cómo las experiencias de sus antepasados hasta ahora desconocidos dieron forma a sus vidas y carreras, el formato se adaptó rápidamente para otras audiencias nacionales con casi 20 versiones en todo el mundo. Este artículo examina el fenómeno de la investigación genealógica mediada a través de los prismas gemelos de la raza y el poscolonialismo. Empleando lecturas detalladas de episodios de las adaptaciones estadounidense (Emmitt Smith) y sudafricana (Jabulani Tsambo/HHP), así como de la serie británica original (Naomie Harris), esta intervención cuestiona las formas en que el poder y el privilegio en las colonias de colonos blancos son desempaquetado a través de narraciones espaciales cuidadosamente seleccionadas de pasados privados destinados al consumo popular. Usando enfoques extraídos de una geografía más que representacional, veo estas representaciones aparentemente ‘individuales’ de genealogía como viajes ‘colectivos’ que inducen afecto a sitios de dolor, prejuicio y falta de poder, que a su vez sirven para dar forma a transnacional. percepciones de lugar y espacio.

Résumé

La généalogie est de nos jours une industrie globale et représente annuellement 3 milliards de dollars rien qu’aux États-Unis. Avec l’aide de la numérisation des archives, de la saisie de données participative et des tests génétiques en libre accès, notre curiosité envers nos origines ancestrales n’a jamais été aussi vive. La BBC, reconnaissant l’intérêt du public envers ce domaine, a lancé la série documentaire Who Do You Think You Are? (Qui pensez-vous être ?, et aussi Pour qui vous prenez-vous ?) en 2004. Avec un format qui se concentre sur les origines familiales de célébrités et la manière dont les vies de leurs ancêtres, jusque-là inconnus, s’avèrent avoir influencé leurs trajectoires et leurs carrières, la formule de cette émission a rapidement été adaptée pour des audiences dans d’autres pays, avec maintenant près de 20 versions autour du monde. Cet article se penche sur le phénomène de la recherche généalogique médiatisée à travers le double prisme de la race et du post-colonialisme. Par le biais d’études approfondies d’un épisode de la série américaine (Emmitt Smith) et d’un de la série sud-africaine (Jabulani Tsambo/HHP), qui sont toutes deux des adaptations, ainsi que d’un épisode de la série britannique originale (Naomie Harris), il examine les façons dont le pouvoir et le privilège dans les colonies d’immigrants blancs sont dévoilés au moyen de récits spatiaux de vies privées du passé, organisées avec soin et pour la consommation du grand public. À l’aide d’approches issues de la géographie plus-que-figurative, je considère ces représentations a priori « individuelles » de généalogie au contraire comme des trajets « collectifs », sources d’affects, vers des lieux de douleur, de préjudice, et de pouvoir (ou d’impuissance), et qui à leur tour permettent de façonner des perceptions internationales de lieux et d’espaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Genealogy
• ancestry
• celebrity
• Africa
• race
• popular geopolitics

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• genealogía
• ascendencia
• celebridad
• África
• raza
• geopolítica popular

MOTS-CLEFS:

• généalogie
• ancêtres
• célébrités
• Afrique
• race
• géopolitique populaire

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Alex Hastie and Joe Thorogood for bringing me on board with this special issue and the most excellent collaboration along the way. I previously presented a version of this paper entitled ‘Geographical Imagination, Genealogy, and Geopolitics in Who Do You Think You Are?’ at the (Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography workshop hosted by Coventry University on 12 January 2022. I am indebted to Klaus Dodds for his invaluable feedback on that preliminary draft. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Rebecca Saunders whose decades of dedication to genealogical research inspired me to undertake this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Regarding case selection, each of these episodes feature movement of the celebrity across national boundaries in search of their genealogical past, with such border-crossings serving to highlight issues associated with white colonial settler power and its deleterious impact on people of African descent.

2. As a member of an extended family with five adoptees across three generations, I recognise the complexities of belonging when familial genetic descent is absent; however, such gaps do not necessarily prevent adoptees from exploring their heritage through lineage work, particularly via personal genomics.

3. When the miniseries aired on ABC, Roots became the most-watched television event in US history.

4. Importantly, Obama is the son of a Kenyan sojourner to the US on his father’s side (rather than the descendant of enslaved Africans) and a white mother from Kansas; however, his identification as a black man growing up in America (and Indonesia), and the heritage of his children via their matrilineal line, lent poignancy to these visits.

5. African Americans in the antebellum South were often not listed by name on so-called ‘slave schedules’, rather being recorded by age, gender, and owner.

6. Not insignificantly, Dillette’s fieldwork took place within the context of a tour entitled ‘Experience Ghana: Journey to a Real Life Wakanda’ during the summer after Black Panther’s premiere.

7. While Washington’s experience is an outlier, it reinforces the notion that Black Diasporans can make a space for themselves in their ancestral homeland through certain embodied practices.

8. In stark comparison to the cases discussed herein, American actress Brooke Shields’ appearance on WDYTYA featured a fancifully decorated scroll with her noble Italian lineage, followed by further discoveries culminating in her direct descent from King Henry IV (1589–1610) of France.

9. American money combined with ‘Americocentrism’ in the African diaspora skews the results, marginalising other parts of the black world, especially the Caribbean and Latin America (see, Abel & Schroeder, 2020; Schramm, 2021).

10. In the British and American episodes discussed here, there is a clear use of aural-spatial markers (see, Kirby, 2019) when the guest arrives in the Caribbean and West Africa respectively, signalling a shift to the tropics via polyrhythmic textures, steel drums, etc. The South African episode differs as the sonic background reflects a rural (neo-Romantic/cinematic) versus urban (hip-hop) divide, thus reminding us of the situated nature of soundscapes based on political subjectivities, cultural geographies, and (perceived) historical-social trajectories (see, Schramm, 2021).

11. The Irish-English conflation here leaves unexplored certain politically charged questions of class and ethnicity that continue to bedevil the imagined tapestries of ‘whiteness’ in the Americas (and beyond).