Investigative genetic genealogy and the identification of the missing from war and mass violence

The genetic identification of those killed in war and mass violence has a long history, becoming an established mode of investigation into mass violence during the forensic intervention that followed the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Wagner (2008) characterizes the popular understanding of the role of DNA identification after conflict as a ‘technology of repair’. Following on from Wagner’s critical engagement with this reparative formulation, there is a growing body of scholarship outlining the ethical and political complexities of deploying genetic testing in investigations of war or mass violence. These critiques reveal the extent to which genetics is imbricated in understandings of identity and personhood, the body, kinship, memory and other material traces of the dead. This article will examine the emergence of forensic investigative genetic genealogy, which has been successfully incorporated into police investigations and is transforming approaches to the unidentified dead. Genetic genealogy entails the use of commercial genealogy websites, normally used by its customers for ancestry tracing and family history research, but instead deploys these sources of information to solve violent crime and identify the dead. I will then evaluate the extent to which genetic genealogy represents a new horizon in the investigation of war and mass violence. The potential benefits of genetic genealogy for cases of war and mass violence are compelling, but also represent an intensification of all the ethical and political tensions that attend the established uses of DNA testing, as well as bringing its own new challenges or vulnerabilities.