The rhetoric appeal to identity on websites of companies offering non-health-related DNA testing
During the last few years a large number of companies have emerged offering DNA testing via the Internet direct-to-consumer. In this paper, I analyse the rhetoric appeal to personal identity put forward on the websites of some of these consumer genomics companies. The investigation is limited to non-health-related DNA testing and focuses on individualistic and communitarianin a descriptive sensevisions of identity. The individualistic visions stress that each individual is unique and suggest that this uniqueness can be supported by, for example, DNA fingerprinting. The communitarian visions emphasise that individuals are members of communities, in this case genetic communities. It is suggested that these visions can be supported by, for example, various types of tests for genetic ancestry tracing. The main part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of these communitarian visions of identity and the DNA tests they refer to.
identity dna testing direct-to-consumer genetic testing genetic testing genetic ancestry testing