Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses connection between representations of human DNA and the idea of race (Rabinow, Rose 2006. Particular ethnographical analysis of Czech genomics and reproductive medicine field is concerned.

Paper long abstract:

Rethinking the human obsession with classifying the world, the proposed presentation is trying to point at the powerful consequences of these cognitive activities. In general, the paper focuses on knowledge/power processes of appropriation of the world through the creation of the social and cultural taxonomies. Nowadays one of the most powerful modern classifying idea ― idea of race — is turned around concepts like ethnicities, human populations, human variations, human genetic diversity, family tree, etc. The presentation is a sociological and anthropological conceptualisation and analysis of the representation of human DNA as the specific information about origin and variability of human populations above all. Taking advantage of interpretative and critical social theory (Rabinow, Rose, Foucault, Agamben, etc.), this paper examines the narrative concerning complementarity of sameness and difference in the production of knowledge within interpretation of various imaginations of DNA, genom. The connection between human DNA and the idea of race, like the main theme of distribution the sameness and difference, is critically analyses within broader area of contemporary forms of the biopower and biosociality: questions of race, reproductive medicine and genomic (Rabinow, Rose 2006).

Particular ethnographical analysis of Czech genomics and reproductive medicine field concerning the popular/emic representations of ethnic dimensions of DNA is concerned. Particularly observation of religious and scientific discourses mainly, interviews with genetics, priests, healers, IVF process actors as well are focused on.