Biological Anthropologists bring their craft to Madison

The African Diaspora and the Atlantic Research Circle, is an academic cluster within the University of Wisconsin, Madison focused on exploring the dispersion of African peoples within Africa and across the ‘new’ world and brings together multidisciplinary scholars interested in Africa to share ideas and research interests. According to the Cluster, they “… provide a global context to the study of African peoples. It looks at different historical waves of dispersal and studies their catalytic factors and directions of movement. It explores how the connections between the African and African diasporic communities reflect the dynamics of their forced or voluntary migration; their interactions and relations with other societies and/or among each other; and the adaptation, reproduction and transformation of African cultural, social institutions and expressive forms. Last Friday, March 12, 2010, the Cluster hosted a very informative symposium on Africa, African Diaspora, Genetics and Genealogy at the Red Gym on UW Madison campus. Three key presenters, all African American scholars critically dissected and in some cases strongly affirmed the place of DNA testing that is gaining ground within the African American community in piecing together a genealogical history for medical, historical, social and biological reasons. The traumatic uprooting of African people and their journey through the middle passage effectively cut the enslaved people from their traceable roots in Africa except for the indelible record of the DNA evidence which naturally survive generations in spite of the admixture in the new world. Those were the challenges these biological anthropologists, Michael Campbell, Fatimah Jackson and Shormaka Omar Y. Keita tackled and broke down for even the non-academic audience members to comprehend. There were also further presentations by Joan Fujimura and James Sweet. Their program and personal introductions as excerpted below signaled that we were in for some satiation of our individual curiosities about subjects one rarely studies outside academic contexts, and the explanation for the burgeoning interest in African genealogy. Dr. Fatimah Jackson who received her PhD from Cornell is an expert on the biohistory of African peoples and their descendants in the diaspora. During the 1990s, she was coordinator for genetics research on the African Burial Ground Project in New York City. In 2002, she co-founded the first human DNA bank in Africa (based at the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon) with the aim of changing the way that anthropological genetic research is done on the African continent by enhancing local infrastructure and expertise, and dramatically improving the potential for scientific understanding of the interactions of genotypes and environmental factors in producing specific phenotypes. She created a local context for data analysis and interpretation. Her objective was to upgrade the quality of genetic data on Africans by placing the molecular information within a sophisticated anthropological context. Jackson has published more than 30 articles in a variety of refereed journals including Human Biology, American Anthropologist, Annual Review of Anthropology, Journal of Black Studies, American Journal of Human Biology, Seton Hall Law Review, and the British Medical Bulletin. Most recently, she appeared in the BBC documentary, “Motherland: A Genetic Journey,” chronicling the search by three African Americans in their search for their genetic roots in Africa. Dr Michael Campbell a PhD in Biological Anthropology from Columbia University was self explanatory in his focus and interest which he describes as follows: “Across broad geographic scales, human populations have shown clear differences in levels of genetic diversity. Particularly, sub-Saharan Africans are found to possess the largest total number of alleles, as well as the largest number of unique alleles compared to non-African populations. Also, Africans have lower levels of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between alleles and more divergent patterns of LD than non-African populations. These patterns of diversity in non-Africans are consistent with the expansion of modern humans from Africa within the last 100,000 years. However, a continued challenge in evolutionary studies has been to characterize genetic variation among ethnically diverse human populations within continental regions, particularly in Africa. Given the central role of African populations in human evolution, understanding their patterns of genetic diversity and LD is crucial for reconstructing human prehistory. I am interested in studying the levels and patterns of African diversity to expand current knowledge concerning relationships among African populations, demographic history and modern human origins. Additionally, I am interested in identifying functionally significant variants involved in complex traits/complex disease using association studies to better understand genotype/phenotype correlations in populations of African descent.” Dr Shormaka Keita, the most critical of the avid focus on genotype in piecing together African diasporic historical roots is a biological anthropologist and physician who has long been interested in human variation, especially in Africa, as well as multidisciplinary approaches to the past. His research has focused on the areas of craniofacial variation, paleopathology, ancient Egyptian skeletal biology, the syntheses of biology, linguistics, and archaeology in order to study African population history, and the history of ideas about "race" and human variation in Africa. Recently Dr. Keita has developed an interest in the issue of building capacity to produce endogenous knowledge in Africa and the diaspora as a need for development. He has authored or coauthored publications in peer reviewed science and humanities journals including the American Journal of Human Biology, Science, American Anthropologist, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Nature Genetics, and History in Africa. He received the doctorate in medicine from Howard University, a masters in general anthropology from SUNY-Binghamton, and the Master of Science and doctorate in biological anthropology from Oxford University The scholars acquitted themselves creditably and it was impressive to see the divergence of opinions even with a common concurrence that ultimately there is a place for DNA testing in the exploration of African peoples migration within the continent and across the oceans. Dining with them afterward and informally continuing their presentations showcased their passion for the work they do and the perceptible feeling that they are not pursuing solo careers but are committed quilters in our collective fabric as people of African descent.