Bordering through genetics: DNA testing, family reunification and Swedish migration control

About the seminar

As part of migration control, some people who apply for family reunification must prove their relationships through DNA tests. In my thesis, I explore the consequences of this, what it does to the concept of family, as well as how the use of techno-scientific knowledge shapes migration control and how we understand it. Through an ethnographic study, drawing on postcolonial and queer feminist theorising, I examine the interrelatedness of power, body, techno-scientific knowledge production, experience, and critique.

About the presenter

Disa Helander, PhD in Gender Studies, teacher and researcher at Umeå Centre for Gender Studies. Their research focuses on borders, migration control, bodies, and knowledge, studied through postcolonial, queer and feminist theory.