The life of family trees and the Book of Icelanders

Abstract

This article discusses the tracing of family histories and competing assumptions about identities and relatedness in the era of biotechnology and biopower. Although the fascination with genealogical trees and family histories is common throughout the West, in Iceland this attraction is extreme. A genealogical database for most of the Icelandic population, the so-called Book of Icelanders, is being constructed as part of a larger biogenetic enterprise that seeks to establish the presumed genetic causes of common diseases for the purpose of developing pharmaceutical products. The discussion explores the changing implications of family trees as they become enmeshed in biomedical projects and political debates. Genealogical records, I suggest, are never innocent phenomena; this is because they have a social life of their own, a biography informed by the contours of the cultural landscapes to which they belong.