In early February 2020, Professor Nara Milanich's new book Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father received international recognition when it was featured in La Diaria: Lento, a prominent Uruguayan publication. La Daria published chapter four of the book, titled "City of Strangers," which details how new paternity testing practices challenged societal conventions in a century old court case over an Argentine inheritance.
Milanich discusses this fluctuating dynamic at length in Paternity, a history of paternity testing inspired by some stand-out cases in 1930s and 1940s South America. Developing paternity testing methods were expected to bring closure to such cases, but Milanich highlights how they have stirred even more questioning. The search for paternity is more than literal genetics; it can reveal the cultural, social, and political connotations of fatherhood.