Paternity and pedigree: How academic genealogical databases become gendered

Authors

Rebecca M. Herzig, Bates CollegeFollow

Publication Title

Gender of Things how Epistemic and Technological Objects Become Gendered

Document Type

Book Chapter

Department or Program

Gender and Sexuality Studies

Publication Date

2023

Abstract

An academic genealogy displays relationships between scientific researchers according to mentoring and training relationships, such as the relationship between dissertation advisor and advisee. Since the early 2000s, scores of field-specific genealogical databases have appeared online, many represented through the branching imagery of the “family tree.” This chapter provides a brief introduction to these technological objects, describing the connections between family trees, pedigree charts, and other Eurocentric, heteropatriarchal kinship records. The chapter suggests that contemporary academic genealogical databases, by invoking such kinship frameworks, inadvertently promote constrictive visions of the “legitimate” family of science, compounding existing gendered, racialized asymmetries in scientific participation.

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003379225

Recommended Citation

Herzig, R. M.(2023). Paternity and Pedigree: How Academic Genealogical Databases Become Gendered. In The Gender of Things (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 198–212). Routledge.