ABSTRACT
This chapter is dedicated to forensic genetics technologies and genetic surveillance specifically in post-communist European countries, presenting how a particular idea of Europe is construed and thus laying bare a set of tensions that underlie the image of a “European Identity.” Forensic genetics in the so-called Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries is a theme that has thus far remained largely unexplored by social scientists. We explore how the meanings attached to forensic genetic technologies in these countries are influenced by memories of their collective past, namely the legacy of totalitarian communist regimes. At the same time, this chapter also seeks to demonstrate the multiplicity of European communities showing how the power to institutionalize a specific vision of Europe might be partially inaccessible to CEE countries. This chapter also suggests that the visions and expectations for the role of genetic surveillance in the governance of crime are shaped by, and concomitant with, unstable European values, which in turn are not separable from either European politics or convoluted transitions from authoritarian regimes to democracy.
