The emergence of human population genetics and narratives about the formation of the Brazilian nation (1950-1960)

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5809846
AutoresVanderlei Sebastião De Souza (0000-0003-4270-7445, Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste), Ricardo Ventura Santos (0000-0001-5071-443X, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)
Ano2014
Volume47
Páginas97-107
Data de publicação2014-06-20
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1369-8486 • E-ISSN: 1879-2499
EditoraElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.05.010
PMID24954151
OpenAlexW1975711159
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas23
Referências citadas39

This paper discusses the emergence of human population genetics in Brazil in the decades following World War II, and pays particular attention to narratives about the formation of the Brazilian nation. We analyze the institutionalization of this branch of genetics in the 1950s and 1960s, and look at research on the characteristics of the population of Brazil, which made use of new explanatory models of evolutionary dynamics. These developments were greatly influenced by the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation and by the presence of North American geneticists in Brazil, especially Theodosius Dobzhansky. One of the main points of this paper is to show that explanations of Brazilian human genetic diversity constructed in the mid-twentieth century closely followed interpretations that had been produced since the end of the nineteenth century, in which notions of 'racial mixing' played a central role. Even as population genetics was conditioned by nationalist concerns that had long marked Brazilian history, we argue that its emergence and institutionalization was closely associated with global, post-World War II socio-political contexts, especially with regards to modernization projects and growing scientific internationalization

Institutionalisation · DNA Repair Mechanisms · History of Medicine and Tropical Health · Race, Genetics, and Society