The Emergence of Human Population Genetics and Narratives about the Formation of the Brazilian Nation (1950--1960) (2014)
Souza, Vanderlei Sebastião de (Author)
Santos, Ricardo Ventura (Author)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 47, Part A
Issue: Part A
Pages: 97-107
Edition Details: Article in a special section: “Heredity and The Study of Human Populations After 1945”
Language: English
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.
...MoreArticle Bangham, Jenny; Chadarevian, Soraya de (2014) Human Heredity after 1945: Moving Populations Centre Stage. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 45-49).
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