2021/01/31 by Daniel Strand, Anna Källén · 1 voice · 2 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Race, Genetics, and Society
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/14636778.2020.1868988
openalex publication_date 2021/01/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21
In this article, we analyze how genetic genealogy reshapes popular notions of historical identity, as it facilitates a genetically informed understanding of ethnicity and ancestry. Drawing on interviews with Swedish, British and American individuals who have employed genetic ancestry tests (GATs) to prove ancestral connections to Vikings, we explore how the desire to “be a Viking” is articulated through a convergence of pre-existing discourses around Vikings and DNA. By combining signs from genetic science and popular depictions of Vikings, our interviewees create a new discourse of geneticized Viking identity. In this new discourse, socio-historically constructed ideas about Vikings are naturalized as the innate qualities of individuals who possess a certain genetic composition. Images of “the Viking” once created for political, cultural or commercial purposes are revived in new embodied forms and can start to circulate in new social contexts, where they, by association, appear to be confirmed by genetical science.