Book dossier

Genetics, mass media, and identity

by Tudor Parfitt

"This book, Genetics, Mass Media and Identity, looks at the effect of genetic research on the identity of the populations studied and is the first monograph devoted to the subject. The specific genetic research treated here was conducted in the 1990s on two quite different communities: the Lemba of southern Africa and the Bene Israel of western India. The genetic research had as its principal aim the solution of the mystery of the origin of the two groups. With the dissemination of the results of the tests in the mass media the Lemba became famous overnight as DNA analysis appeared to support their ambiguous historical traditions. These traditions which had hitherto been rejected by mainstream Jewish communities maintain that they are Jewish and came from a town called Sena 'somewhere in the far north'. In the case of the Bene Israel, another somewhat ambiguous Jewish group, the results were interpreted in a way which is embedded in local Indian traditions. This engaging and accessible study is based on extensive interviews with the members of the two communities and their neighbours and an analysis of a wide range of the mass media material devoted to them."--Jacket.