Shadows of doubt

The uneasy incorporation of identification science into legal determination of paternity in Brazil

Bibliographic Data

ID5169060
AuthorsSueann Caulfield (0000-0002-9145-4707, University of Michigan), Alexandra Minna Stern (0000-0003-1647-1846, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume33
Issuesuppl 1
Pagese00110016-e00110016
Publication date2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCadernos de Saude Publica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0102-311X • E-ISSN: 1678-4464
PublisherFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/0102-311x00110016
PMID28492708
OpenAlexW2612449359
SCIELO_PIDS0102-311X2017001303001
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in the Brazilian courts. Yet, over the past two decades, Brazilian legal doctrine and jurisprudence have increasingly rejected DNA proof as the sine qua non for paternity cases. Instead, DNA paternity testing has generated mountains of litigation, as biological proof has been challenged by the argument that paternity is primarily "socio-affective". Leading family law specialists describe this new conception of paternity as an outcome of the "revolutionary" provisions of the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes the "pluralism" of family forms in modern society and guarantees equal family rights for all children. Without denying the significance of the constitution's dignitary framework, we show that new legal understandings of paternity represent less a paradigm shift than a continuation of longstanding historical tensions between biological and socio-cultural understandings of family and identity. In this article, we explore the development of biological and eventually genetic typing in Brazil, both of which had ties to the fields of criminology and race science. Our review suggests that techniques of biological identification, no matter how sophisticated or precise, were ineffective means for establishing identity, whether of individual personhood, as in the case of paternity, or national make-up. Instead, they became incorporated as supplemental methods into complex legal, social, and cultural decision-making around families

Argument (complex analysis) · Biology · Constitution · Identity (music) · Jurisprudence · Legal doctrine · Personhood · Political science · Scrutiny · Sine qua non · Sociology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Forensic and Genetic Research · Law · Race, Genetics, and Society