Genomic research, publics and experts in Latin America: Nation, race and body.

The articles in this issue highlight contributions that studies of Latin America can make to wider debates about the effects of genomic science on public ideas about race and nation. We argue that current ideas about the power of genomics to transfigure and transform existing ways of thinking about human diversity are often overstated. If a range of social contexts are examined, the effects are uneven. Our data show that genomic knowledge can unsettle and reinforce ideas of nation and race; it can be both banal and highly politicized. In this introduction, we outline concepts of genetic knowledge in society; theories of genetics, nation and race; approaches to public understandings of science; and the Latin American contexts of transnational ideas of nation and race.

País de gordos/país de muertos: Obesity, death and nation in biomedical and forensic genetics in Mexico.

This article provides a comparison between genomic medicine and forensic genetics in Mexico, in light of recent depictions of the nation as a 'país de gordos' (country of the fat) and a 'país de muertos' (country of the dead). We examine the continuities and ruptures in the public image of genetics in these two areas of attention, health and security, focusing especially on how the relevant publics of genetic science are assembled in each case. Publics of biomedical and forensic genetics are assembled through processes of recruitment and interpellation, in ways that modulate current theorizations of co-production. The comparison also provides a vista onto discussions regarding the involvement of genetics in regimes of governance and citizenship and about the relationship between the state and biopower in a context of perceived health crisis and war-like violence.

Building the genomic nation: 'Homo Brasilis' and the 'Genoma Mexicano' in comparative cultural perspective.

This article explores the relationship between genetic research, nationalism and the construction of collective social identities in Latin America. It makes a comparative analysis of two research projects--the 'Genoma Mexicano' and the 'Homo Brasilis'--both of which sought to establish national and genetic profiles. Both have reproduced and strengthened the idea of their respective nations of focus, incorporating biological elements into debates on social identities. Also, both have placed the unifying figure of the mestizo/mestiço at the heart of national identity constructions, and in so doing have displaced alternative identity categories, such as those based on race. However, having been developed in different national contexts, these projects have had distinct scientific and social trajectories: in Mexico, the genomic mestizo is mobilized mainly in relation to health, while in Brazil the key arena is that of race. We show the importance of the nation as a frame for mobilizing genetic data in public policy debates, and demonstrate how race comes in and out of focus in different Latin American national contexts of genomic research, while never completely disappearing.

[Scientific approaches to the Mexican mestizo]. / Aproximaciones cientificas al mestizo mexicano.

The colonial category of mestizo was an ideological tool that shaped national identity in the post-revolutionary period in Mexico. The Indian-mestizo axis functioned to organize the ethnic and political interactions of the state. Doctors and anthropologists reinforced this dual taxonomy in studies of human populations, using biomedical markers to produce differentiated descriptions of the Indian and the mestizo. Genomic descriptions have contributed both to the construction of the scientistic notion of the mestizo based on the percentage of Indian, European and African ancestry, and also to the rise of two technoscientific objects that we call the molecular mestizo and the bioinformatic mestizo. Here we describe the interactions between the ideological and scientific incarnations of the mestizo.

Exploring heredity: diachronic and synchronic connections.

A brief description and evaluation of the contributions that Hans-Jörg Rheinberger has made to our understanding of the history of modern views of biological heredity is provided. Focusing on the efforts that Rheinberger and his close collaborator Staffan Miller-Wille, made to bring together previously scattered and unconnected scholarship and produce a unified and strikingly powerful account of the emergence of Heredity first and Genetics later as central explanatory resources for biological sciences, this paper tries to explain the importance of such efforts, and to contribute with suggestions for further work on these topics.

Aproximaciones cientificas al mestizo mexicano / Scientific approaches to the Mexican mestizo

La categoría colonial del mestizo fue un recurso ideológico, formador de la identidad nacional en la posrevolución mexicana. El eje indio-mestizo sirvió para organizar las interacciones étnicas y las políticas del estado. Médicos y antropólogos reforzaron esta taxonomía dual en estudios de poblaciones humanas, produciendo con marcadores biomédicos y descripciones diferenciadas del indio y del mestizo. Las descripciones genómicas han contribuido tanto a la construcción de una noción cientificista del mestizo arraigada en porcentajes de ancestría india, europea y africana, como al surgimiento de dos objetos tecnocientíficos que llamamos el mestizo molecular y el mestizo bioinformático. Aquí describimos las interacciones entre las encarnaciones ideológicas y científicas del mestizo.

The colonial category of mestizo was an ideological tool that shaped national identity in the post-revolutionary period in Mexico. The Indian-mestizo axis functioned to organize the ethnic and political interactions of the state. Doctors and anthropologists reinforced this dual taxonomy in studies of human populations, using biomedical markers to produce differentiated descriptions of the Indian and the mestizo. Genomic descriptions have contributed both to the construction of the scientistic notion of the mestizo based on the percentage of Indian, European and African ancestry, and also to the rise of two technoscientific objects that we call the molecular mestizo and the bioinformatic mestizo. Here we describe the interactions between the ideological and scientific incarnations of the mestizo.

Análisis de la sistemática actual en Latinoamérica / Analysis of the state of systematics in latin america / Análise da sistemática atual NA américa LatinA

Para tener una visión regional del estado de desarrollo de la sistemática en América Latina durante las últimas tres décadas, se presentan los resultados del análisis cienciométrico de 11185 documentos publicados entre 1976 y 2006 en 411 revistas de la región, obtenidos de la base de datos Periódica. Se describe el estado actual de la disciplina en el área, se exponen análisis detallados sobre los artículos, países, principales líneas de estudios, grupos taxonómicos, temas, formato, tipo de documento, contenido, idioma y se contextualiza la información. La producción especializada sobre sistemática publicada en las revistas locales fue notable y se mantuvo estable a partir de los 80, centrándose principalmente en México, Brasil y Argentina. Los contenidos fueron publicados en español primariamente y en forma de artículos. Versaron especialmente sobre taxonomía descriptiva y se relacionaron con la ecología, anatomía, histología y biología acuática. Los grupos más representados fueron los insectos y las angiospermas. Se concluye haciendo una llamada a la necesidad urgente de sistematizar la literatura de sistemática sobre taxones latinoamericanos.

In order to have a regional vision of the development of systematics in Latin America during the last three decades, the results of a scientometric analysis based on 11185 documents on this theme published in 411 journals from 1976 to 2006 and obtained from the Periodica data base are presented. The current state of the discipline in the region is described, a detailed analysis about the articles, countries, main lines of study, taxonomic groups, topics, format, type of document, content and language is carried out, and the information is contextualized. The specialized production on systematics produced and published in local journals was notable and remained stable after the 80’s, mainly in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. The contents have been published primarily in Spanish and mainly in the form of articles. They dealt mostly with descriptive taxonomy and were related to ecology, anatomy, histology and aquatic biology. The most represented groups were insects and angiosperms. A call is made for the urgent need of systematizing the literature about Latin American taxa.

Para ter uma visão regional do estado de desenvolvimento da sistemática na América Latina durante as últimas três décadas, se apresentam os resultados da análise cienciométrica, de 1976 a 2006, baseada em 11.185 documentos publicados sobre o tema em 411 revistas publicadas na região, obtidos da base de dados Periódica. Descreve-se o estado atual da disciplina na área, se expõe análises detalhadas sobre os artigos, países, principais linhas de estudos, grupos taxonômicos, temas, formato, tipo de documento, conteúdo, idioma e se contextualiza a informação. A produção especializada sobre sistemática publicada nas revistas locais foi notável e se manteve estável a partir dos anos 80, centrando-se principalmente no México, Brasil e Argentina. Os conteúdos foram publicados em espanhol primariamente e em forma de artigos. Versaram especialmente sobre taxonomia descritiva e se relacionaram com a ecologia, anatomia, histologia e biologia aquática. Os grupos mais representados foram os insetos e as angiospermas. Conclui-se com uma chamada de atenção para a necessidade urgente de sistematizar toda a literatura sobre sistemática dos táxons latino-americanos.

Storytelling, statistics and hereditary thought: the narrative support of early statistics.

This paper's main contention is that some basically methodological developments in science which are apparently distant and unrelated can be seen as part of a sequential story. Focusing on general inferential and epistemological matters, the paper links occurrences separated by both in time and space, by formal and representational issues rather than social or disciplinary links. It focuses on a few limited aspects of several cognitive practices in medical and biological contexts separated by geography, disciplines and decades, but connected by long term transdisciplinary representational and inferential structures and constraints. The paper intends to show a given set of knowledge claims based on organizing statistically empirical data can be seen to have been underpinned by a previous, more familiar, and probably more natural, narrative handling of similar evidence. To achieve that this paper moves from medicine in France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century in England among gentleman naturalists, following its subject: the shift from narrative depiction of hereditary transmission of physical peculiarities to posterior statistical articulations of the same phenomena. Some early defenders of heredity as an important (if not the most important) causal presence in the understanding of life adopted singular narratives, in the form of case stories from medical and natural history traditions, to flesh out a special kind of causality peculiar to heredity. This work tries to reconstruct historically the rationale that drove the use of such narratives. It then shows that when this rationale was methodologically challenged, its basic narrative and probabilistic underpinings were transferred to the statistical quantificational tools that took their place.

In the cradle of heredity; French physicians and l'hérédité naturelle in the early 19th century.

This paper argues that our modern concept of biological heredity was first clearly introduced in a theoretical and practical setting by the generation of French physicians that were active between 1810 and 1830. It describes how from a traditional focus on hereditary transmission of disease, influential French medical men like Esquirol, Fodéré, Piorry, Lévy, moved towards considering heredity a central concept for the conception of the human bodily frame, and its set of physical and moral dispositions. The notion of heredity as a natural force, with a wide ranging capabilities of transmitting differentially both fundamental and accidental characters was generalized by that generation of physicians with the help of contemporary naturalists and physiologists. By 1830 the term hérédité was widespread, and it shared the explanatory and semantic qualities of traditional medical concepts like constitution and temperament. An analysis is given of the main developments that led to the conception of biological (including human) bodies as consisting of a layered, hierarchical organization of characters, differentially affected by the law of conservation (Heredity) and change (Inneity, Variation). The mid-century work of the French physician Prosper Lucas, Traité Philosophique et Physiologique de L' Hérédité Naturelle, is shown to be the culmination of the efforts of several generations of French physicians towards having a feasible, complexly structured notion of how heredity works.