Building a Postcolonial Carceral State: South Africa's Forensic DNA Database

• In Event: Forensic Devices: How They Mediate, How They Are Discussed, How They Mitigate Interprofessional Conflicts - II

Abstract

This paper considers links between South Africa's biometric histories (Breckenridge 2014) and one manifestation of South African biometrics in the present: a national forensic DNA database that was established in 2015 when legislation was passed that regulated its scope and formalized the role of the South African Police Service (SAPS) in its expansion and maintenance. As a decolonizing state, postapartheid South Africa was actively engaged in dismantling apartheid policing when they pivoted to a renewed focus on state carcerality via forensic science. I'm interested in teasing out historical linkages as one way to account for this pivot. Taking the DNA database as a forensic device, this paper asks how forensic genetics mediates dual postcolonial concerns: divesting from colonially-inherited forms of oppression and investing in popularly circulating demands for safety and security. Mediation is especially pertinent here given that forensic genetics can recapitulate aspects of these colonial forms. I argue that debates about the specific regulations that will govern South Africa's national DNA database ultimately worked to obscure colonial continuities, thus depoliticizing forensic genetics such that it could be endorsed by a wide range of South Africans differently situated in colonial and apartheid histories.

Author

• Noah Tamarkin, Cornell University