Making up families: how DNA analysis does/does not verify relatedness in family reunification in Finland
- PDF / 442,079 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 20 Downloads / 173 Views
Making up families: how DNA analysis does/does not verify relatedness in family reunification in Finland Anna-Maria Tapaninen1 • Ilpo Hele´n2
Springer Nature Limited 2019
Abstract This article examines the role of DNA testing in immigration management practices in which individuals and their kin relationships are modified as objects of investigation: defined, categorised and ‘‘made up’’ (Hacking in Historical ontology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2002) as families. Analysis focuses on the interplay of documents (or lack thereof), narratives and DNA analysis that produces evidentiary facts and knowledge about migrants and, simultaneously, forges relationships between individuals, families and other collectives. Analysis of the Finnish administrative and legal data concerning family reunification shows that DNA testing does much more than just provide evidence of the existence of a genetic tie between alleged family members; testing can also be translated into proof of ‘true’ families or extended to test the credibility of the applicants. Via translations and extensions, the accuracy of DNA analysis is intertwined with the contingencies of decision-making in the context of immigration management. Related to this, the article demonstrates that DNA testing supports the process by which immigration authorities in the Global North constitute the family as contingent, indefinite and even arbitrary, rather than consolidating a clear and solid model of eligibility for family reunification. Keywords DNA testing Family reunification Immigration management Finland
The manuscript is comprised of original material, and it is not under review elsewhere. The research projects on which this paper is based have conducted following the ethical codes of social science research, the funders of the project (ELSA-GEN/the Academy of Finland, The Kone Foundation) have review the study protocol as ethically appropriate. & Ilpo Hele´n [email protected] 1
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
2
Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland
A. Tapaninen, I. Hele´n
Introduction Family reunification has become a major route to legal, long-term immigration into Europe in the twenty-first century (EMN 2017; Eurostat 2016). It is based on ‘‘the right to family’’, as laid down in international conventions (Ruffer 2011; Heinemann et al. 2013), and managed and regulated through administrative procedures in which national immigration authorities investigate, case by case, whether or not ‘‘there is a family to reunify’’, as one Finnish immigration official put it. Immigration authorities utilize DNA testing in family reunification procedures in at least 25 countries in the Global North (EMN 2016, 2017). It has become a routine form of investigation in immigration management (European Commission 2011; EMN 2009, 2012a, b; 2016), as it is widely perceived to provide the most exact and objective piece of evidence in the verification of family ties (Heinemann et al. 2015). The
Data Loading...
