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

Bibliographic Data

ID5809846
AuthorsVanderlei 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)
Year2014
Volume47
Pages97-107
Publication date2014-06-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-8486 • E-ISSN: 1879-2499
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.05.010
PMID24954151
OpenAlexW1975711159
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited39

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