Law, Practice and Politics of Forensic DNA Profiling: Forensic Genetics and Their Technolegal Worlds

This collection reviews developments in DNA profiling across jurisdictions with a focus on scientific and technological developments as well as their political, ethical, and socio-legal aspects. Written by leading scholars in the fields of social studies of forensic science, science and technology studies and socio-legal studies, the book provides state-of-the-art analyses of forensic DNA practices in a diverse range of jurisdictions, new and emerging forensic genetics technologies and issues of legitimacy.

The work articulates the various forms of technolegal politics involved in the everyday, standardised and emerging practices of forensic genetics and engages with the most recent scholarly and policy literature. In analyses of empirical cases, and by taking into account the most recent technolegal developments, the book explores what it means to live in a world that is increasingly governed through anticipatory crime control and its related risk management and bio-surveillance mechanisms, which intervene with and produce political and legal subjectivities through human bodies in their DNA.

This volume is an invaluable resource for those working in the areas of social studies of forensic science, science and technology studies, socio-legal studies, sociology, anthropology, ethics, law, politics and international relations.

Dr Victor Toom is scientific staff at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, The Hague, the Netherlands.

Dr Matthias Wienroth, Centre for Crime and Policing, Department of Social Sciences, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Amade M’charek is Professor of Anthropology of Science at the Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.