Last week I told you the story of how I met my doppelganger! I told the internet, too, and over 150,000 people saw the story. Other than vows from people to help me track down my doppelganger, there was an overall consensus that I needed to take a DNA test. The only thing is I already have! (Also, another weird update on the doppelganger situation at the end of today’s episode if you’re listening to the audio). The older I get the more I realize how much I take after my father. I get my height, dimple on my left cheek, and eye shape from my father. He’s really funny, too. Like a perfectly timed drum tap, he knows how to deliver a quick-witted rebuttal or response to anything. I mean it’s more than just the African dad memes or skits that you see online¹, my Dad genuinely loves life and adds levity to any situation. This is why I held my breath when I showed him my DNA test. His eyes scanned the results. He told me to bring him his glasses. I did. With his glasses, he scanned the results again. Intensely, this time. He took off his glasses and started laughing. When he finally caught his breath, my Dad said “You spent all that money to tell you something I could have told you for free” I took the test out of curiosity, not out of doubt. During the first year of my PhD program in history at Harvard, I had to take a methods and historiography course. One day in class, we were talking about ancestry reports and cross-disciplinary collaborations with genealogists. When it comes to the field of family history and genealogical studies, until recently, it was mainly dominated by American and Western European studies. So, naturally, I was curious about what, if anything at all, an ancestry test could tell me about my own family history. Test resultsSo I took the test, but every time I’ve checked it since the results have changed. When I first took the test, it said I was 97% sub-Saharan African, 2% other, and 1% North African; within the 97%, I was 90% Nigerian, 5% Senegambian, 2% Central African. A year later, the results changed. I was 100% Nigerian, but this time the breakdown was by ethnic regions–the report showed by and large that I’m Yoruba. None of these results are shocking btw! I am, in fact, Yoruba. I checked again recently, it says I’m 100% Nigerian. That’s it, no breakdowns. I’m sure there are many reasons for this fluctuation in results over time. There’s one explanation that I want to show you today. What can a test tell you?Adam Rutherford, a geneticist and author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes, helped me make sense of all this when he wrote
For this reason, it is important to contend with the idea that anyone can have absolute certainty about where they come from or maybe I should say where they begin or originate from. Yes, it’s possible to make broad claims about the region of the world a person comes from. However, with the commercialization of genomic data, it can be easy to believe that a single test can hold all of the specific answers a person may be seeking concerning their origins. Ethics & Scientific RacismWhen it comes to the use of scientific data to tell narratives especially when it comes to race and identity, I have a responsibility as an academic and historian to remind you that historically, scientific “results” have been used, abused, and manipulated towards pretty nefarious ends. The National Human Genome Research Institute defines scientific racism as “a historical pattern of ideologies that generate pseudo-scientific racist beliefs.”² Scientific studies and measurements have often been used as purity tests to claim the superiority of one group of people over another and justify the subjugation of people based on skin color, traits, features, ancestry, etc. Noticing or acknowledging people have certain traits can be harmless, but making decisions, creating institutions, and determining policies over the traits some people have or don’t have to harm or subjugate them is the foundation of extremism, both past and present. It’s important to keep all this in mind! So, Adam Rutherford is right. My ancestry report doesn’t really tell me much. At most, it can tell me a little bit about my more recent ancestry through inference. It tells me I belong to a nation-state called Nigeria, but it’s up to the work of historians to tell me much more. Nigeria gained independence from the British Empire in 1960. Prior to that, the area was an amalgamated territory made up of different tribes and city-states. Before that, the British created the crown colony of Lagos from a community of settlements. Before the British came, the Dutch and the Portuguese traded and waged war against a wide array of kingdoms and caliphates in the region. Lagos itself was and continues to be a cosmopolitan region, a crossroads for people of different languages, tribes, and religions to live and trade. In short, Vincent Hiribarren poses an important question that helps reframe how historians should evaluate genealogy tests. He says “How could we conflate hundreds of years of history within the national borders of a twenty-first-century state?”³ Lagos or ÈkóThis current series, Beyond Hyphenation: A Deep History of Diasporas, is an attempt to tell a story that moves beyond the borders of modern nation-states to explore how diasporas are formed and identities are shaped. If you followed along from the beginning, you’ll know this series started while I was floating in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Lagos, Portugal. I was doing an ecological tour, trying to see firsthand the ongoing impact of climate change on coastal cities like Lagos, but then I encountered something more personal.
Lagos, Portugal is known for its pristine beaches, good weather, and amazing seafood. The more time I spent here, the more I realized I had been pronouncing the city’s name wrong. I pronounced it Lagos as in the name of the former capital of Nigeria. It’s pronounced /Lah ghosh/ (I’m not sure how to even write it phonetically, but listen to the audio of today’s episode). I’m always sharing photos with my family, so I sent a WhatsApp to my Dad while on the boat to see if he would be just as confused as me:
I called my Dad after I got off the boat to share with him the history I had actually found! I am a historian of the British empire, which comes much later in Nigeria’s history. More broadly speaking, when European empires established trading posts, usually the precursors to colonies, they renamed the territory in their own language. In the late 15th century, the area now known as Lagos contained a community of Yoruba fishermen and agriculturalists. The area was a part of the Benin Kingdom and was called Èkó.⁴ When the Portuguese arrived they were fascinated by the water that created a channel between the mainland and the island. The name “Lagos” came from the Portuguese word lago which means lake. Many of the Portuguese explorers and slave merchants who were sailing at this time left from the southern port of Lagos in Portugal. As the Portuguese presence increased in parts of West Africa, the area known locally as Èkó, known for its “lake” became Lagos. Hence, why there are two places called Lagos today. I never knew Lagos was called Èkó, but something is telling me there’s much more to unpack here. ConclusionPerhaps, my dad was right. The ancestry test was a waste of money. It didn’t tell me something I didn’t already know. However, what if I am learning something new? The inconsistency of the DNA ancestry results perhaps should tell us something about the craft of history itself. History is not just a simple and clear linear path to the present. There are twists, turns, often unexpected detours, and a whole lot of mysteries. Today, we looked at a single place, with names and people that have changed over time. This is only the beginning. We dig deeper next week,
Catch up on all the episodes of “Beyond Hyphenation: A Deep History of Diasporas” here:
1 I know I’m late to the party, but Isaac Olayiwola (aka Layi Wasabi) just started showing up on my timeline and I literally can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard! Exhibit A:  3 Pg 136 of Vincent Hiribarren, 'The Origins of Kingdoms and Empires in Precolonial Nigeria', in Toyin Falola, and Matthew M. Heaton (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Nigerian History, 2022. 4 Robin Law, “Trade and Politics Behind the Slave Coast: The Lagoon Traffic and the Rise of Lagos, 1500–1800.” Journal of African History, vol. 24, no. 3, 1983, pp. 321–48. SHAE THE HISTORIAN is a newsletter for history lovers seeking to search the past, learn something new, and contribute to the archive of life. If you enjoyed this story, feel free to share it with someone. Stay curious, friends!
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subota, 13. srpnja 2024.
Listen 🎧: The Tale of Two Places Called Lagos
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