title: The emergence of human population genetics and narratives about the formation of the Brazilian nation (1950-1960).
abstract: 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.
authors: Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste, Paraná, Brazil.
authors: Vanderlei Sebastião
authors: VS
authors: de Souza
authors: Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rua Leopoldo Bulhões 1480, sala 617, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21041-210, Brazil; Departamento de Antropologia, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Electronic address: santos@ensp.fiocruz.br.
authors: Ricardo Ventura
authors: RV
authors: Santos
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000266:history*; D012106:Research / Q000266:history*; D012586:Science / Q000266:history; D012922:Social Change / Q000266:history; D047789:World War II
keywords: Brazil; Evolutionary theory; History of genetics; Latin America; Physical anthropology; Racial crossing