Subversive Genes: Civil Disobedience, Techno-Scientific Activism, and the Emergence of Human Rights Genetics.

In this paper, I examine this history of appropriation, innovation, occupation, and creative (mis)use of genetic science in Latin America as a form of scientific civil disobedience that challenges the unjust practices of both the State and Scientific institutions. Through an ethnographically informed archival and material history of genetic technology innovation in Argentina, Guatemala, and Mexico, I demonstrate how activists have fused politics and emergent technologies in disobedient ways that produce science “otherwise” (Escobar, 1994). Communities have reimagined genetic technologies from a tool of law enforcement and surveillance into opportunities for community-centered justice. Resisting narratives that center technology as a magic bullet, I use ethnography and oral history to both aterrizar (ground) and encarnar (en-flesh) emergent genetic technologies, documenting their emplaced histories, specific political and cultural contexts and the care and labor that remade them as tools capable of challenging dictatorial regimes, making visible entrenched structural violence, and transforming scientific and state institutions. Through close attention to cultural and regional networks, I show how the emergence of Latin American forensic genetics challenges dominant innovation paradigms, offering a unique approach to community-led technology development grounded in civil disobedience.