'No Easy Answer' for South African Genetic Testing Ethics

For the past decade, a team of genetic researchers from the Henn Lab have worked among the Khoe, San and so-called "coloured" communities in South Africa, which comprise multiple ethnic groups in the region, requesting DNA and generating genetic data to help unravel the history and prehistory of southern Africans and their relationship to populations around the world.

While a great deal was learned from these communities, a common request remains unfulfilled: providing them their individual genetic ancestry results. In their attempts to overcome the logistical challenges of providing this information, Dana Al-Hindi (PhD Candidate in Anthropology, University of California, Davis) and Brenna Henn (Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis), grappled with the common question of how to ensure an equitable balance of benefits between researchers and the community they study. What they found is that there is no easy answer.

The Khoe and San are considered the most genetically diverse human populations currently known, meaning they have a large amount of genetic differences within and between each community. Though they are distinct groups, they share genetic similarities with each other. As a result, geneticists collectively refer to them as Khoe-San, using a hyphen to acknowledge their cultural distinction.

Today, few people identify as Khoe or San in South Africa. Rather, many people call themselves colored, though they are deeply aware of the term's racist legacy.