Abstract

The rise of direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry tests have implications for white racial identity formation, social capital, and race shifting, which warrants the attention of critical race scholars and cultural studies scholars. By promoting the fictional idea that DNA can reveal who we are, these direct-to-consumer devices purport to people the fantasy of transgressing boundaries of racial identity. This study uses a mixed method approach combining in-depth open-ended interviews with a qualitative relational analysis of YouTube videos to better understand how and why white people are turning to commercially available ancestry tests to race shift.