Relational dynamite: Engagements with kinship at the interface of donor conception and DNA testing

Petra Nordqvist, Leah Gilman, Caroline Redhead, Marie Fox, Nicky Hudson, Fiona MacCallum and Lucy Frith

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 382, issue C

Abstract: This article investigates how Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing (DTCGT) affects people impacted by donor conception by bringing empirical data on how people in this context respond to a DNA match into conversation with debates on kinship and personal life. Our aim is to conceptually engage with a salient emerging empirical theme, namely that people at the interface of donor conception/DTCGT respond to a (previously unknown) DNA match on a continuum of receptiveness marked by ‘embrace’ at one extreme end, and ‘reject’ at the other. Engaging theoretically with ‘extreme end’ responses, we argue that people in this situation necessarily consider how to navigate and integrate two different forms of kinship: the ‘born and bred’ kinship of their existing everyday relationships, and the ‘accelerated kinship’ with ‘donor connections’ emerging in the wake of a match. We propose that people's responses to a DNA match are shaped by the ways in which strands of their ‘born and bred’ kinship to do with ontology, belonging, relationality, emotionality, power and temporality have mixed into unique, ossified forms over time within their family. Ultimately, we argue that responses are relational, and that a genetic match can operate as ‘relational dynamite’ in families.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118354

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