Blood groups and human groups

Collecting and calibrating genetic data after World War Two

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5814767
AutoresJenny Bangham (0000-0001-8781-571X, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen47
Páginas74-86
Fecha de publicación2014-07-23
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1369-8486 • E-ISSN: 1879-2499
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.05.008
PMID25066898
PMCIDPMC4228080
OpenAlexW2130997200
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas29
Referencias citadas40

Arthur Mourant's The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups (1954) was an "indispensable" reference book on the "anthropology of blood groups" containing a vast collection of human genetic data. It was based on the results of blood-grouping tests carried out on half-a-million people and drew together studies on diverse populations around the world: from rural communities, to religious exiles, to volunteer transfusion donors. This paper pieces together sequential stages in the production of a small fraction of the blood-group data in Mourant's book, to examine how he and his colleagues made genetic data from people. Using sources from several collecting projects, I follow how blood was encountered, how it was inscribed, and how it was turned into a laboratory resource. I trace Mourant's analytical and representational strategies to make blood groups both credibly 'genetic' and understood as relevant to human ancestry, race and history. In this story, 'populations' were not simply given, but were produced through public health, colonial and post-colonial institutions, and by the labour and expertise of subjects, assistants and mediators. Genetic data were not self-evidently 'biological', but were shaped by existing historical and geographical identities, by political relationships, and by notions of kinship and belonging

Blood group antigens · Genetic data · Human blood · Race, Genetics, and Society