François Romijn

Anthropology of science; Science and Technology Studies (STS); Specialist knowledge & lay-users; Genomics as a cultural object; ancient DNA research; social construction of the relationship to the past; Ambiguities and action.

[2024-2027] MSCA Individual Fellowship (Global Fellowship), MPI-EVA (Leipzig, Germany) & Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia). Project title: The social life of ancient DNA. How can scientists and citizens better interpret the past in light of ancient DNA research? A dual ethnographic study in Germany and Vanuatu.

Summary: More than ever before, humans have access to new specialist knowledge involving genetics. This project extends my investigation of practices whereby genetics & the construction of identities intersect in a field little studied by social sciences and humanities: ancient DNA (aDNA) research. At the crossroads of archaeology, bio/evolutionary anthropology, & population genetics, aDNA research entered a golden age in its contribution to untold narratives on past societies & the way it changes how past populations are perceived. While this field is growing rapidly, in-depth understanding of social & political consequences arising from practices & knowledge produced are needed. We still lack robust ethnographic understanding of how aDNA researchers incorporate the knowledge they produce into narratives about origins, ancestry, social relationships. Meanwhile, little is known about what exactly citizens or community stakeholders do with genomic histories they receive from aDNA researchers. The main goal is to study how scientists & community stakeholders interpret the past in light of this new knowledge. This project involves several research sites, including in the Postcolonial context of Vanuatu and in Germany, with both researchers producing aDNA science and community stakeholders exposed or concerned.

Previous research projects

[2021-2024] As Chargé de recherche (Postdoctoral position) with the National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS), Laboratoire d’anthropologie des mondes contemporains (LAMC, ULB). Project title: Genomics and the construction of the past. Ancestry genomics among Wisconsin-based descendants of Belgian Immigrants.

[2020] Belgian American Educational Foundation & University of Wisconsin-Madison Postdoctoral Position.

[2018-2020] Cross-disciplinary Program (IDEX) University of scientific excellence and innovation Postdoctoral Position (full-time), University Grenoble-Alps. Project title: Epigenetics and incorporation of the environment: Which biosocial agendas for sociology and epidemiology?

[2013-2018] Junior Research Fellow (Ph.D. candidate) with the National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS), Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales & Université libre de Bruxelles.

Romijn F. (2023), « Nouveaux savoirs spécialisés sur le biologique et redéfinitions de la responsabilité : génomique de l’ancestralité, épigénomique environnementale et ADN ancien », SociologieS.

Romijn F. (2023), “Negotiating Belgian identity through ancestry genomics. How ancestry genomics filters into a community of Wisconsin-based descendants of Belgian immigrants?”, Science as Culture.
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Romijn F. (dir.) (2022), Masquer la contradiction. L’ambiguïté comme mode de communication et pouvoir d’agir dans les espaces numériques, Socio-Anthropologie, n° 46, Sorbonne Edition.
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Romijn F. (2022), “We are all cousins.” Belgian ancestry and genomic testing in a close-knit community in northeastern Wisconsin, New Genetics & Society.
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Romijn F. (with Louvel S.) (2021), "Epidemiologists’ ambivalence towards the epigenetics of social adversity", BioSocieties. 
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