Genealogy, origins and ontological security

Abstract

Genealogical practices uncovering individuals’ ‘roots’ or ancestries have a long heritage but have acquired heightened interest with the advent of genealogical services and DNA testing. When one does a simple inventory of all the ways that genealogy, writ large, gets practised, the desire to find the ‘origins’ of individuals, groups, and national communities seems ubiquitous. This article examines how genealogy relates to the self in Late Modernity. Specifically, it utilises ontological security to understand how finding one’s origins has both transnational implications and ones that relate to an individual and group’s ‘ordering of the Self’. The article explores the evolution of genealogy, highlights the constitutive role of methods in genealogical ontologies, foregrounds the centrality of race in contemporary political contests over genealogy, considers the politics of ‘genealogical ascription’, and posits the ordering features of genealogy expressed through ontological security referents of routines, vicarious identity, narration, and scientific ‘expertise’.