Making Postcolonial Connections: The Role of a Japanese Research Network in the Emer-gence of Human Genetics in South Korea, 1941-1968

Hyun, Jaehwan

doi:10.36092/kjhs.2017.39.2.293

Cited by 3 publications

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“…한편, 이 시기 의학 유전학에 관심을 가진 임상의들과 유전학자들 사이에서 전문성 및 연구 관심사와 관련한 일종의 긴장관계가 발견된다. 대개 동물학과 출신이던 유전학자들은 1950년대 후반부터 인류 유전 연구를 추진했으며, 그 일환으로 염색체 핵형 조사를 비롯한 한국인 집단에 대한 세포유전학적 연구를 실시해왔다( Hyun, 2017 ). 특히 임상 의학자들의 유전학에 대한 관심이 고조되었던 1970년대 말 유전학자들의 주도로 한국유전학회가 창설되었고, 한양의대 유전학교실의 백용균이 초대회장을 맡았다( 한국생물과학협회, 1996 ).…”

Section: 한국의 의학 유전학: 진단검사로서의 “유전의학”unclassified

Doctors Discussing “the Root of Koreans”: Medical Genetics and the Korean Origin, 1975-1987

Hyun¹

2019

Korean J Med Hist

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Anthropological genetics emerged as a new discipline to investigate the origin of human species in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the genetic database of blood groups and other protein polymorphisms, anthropological geneticists started redrawing the ancient migratory history of human populations. A peculiarity of the Korean experience is that clinical physicians were the first experts using genetic data to theorize the historical origin of the respective population. This paper examines how South Korean physicians produced the genetic knowledge and discourse of the Korean origin in the 1970s and 1980s. It argues that transnational scientific exchange led clinical researchers to engage in global anthropological studies. The paper focuses on two scientific cooperative cases in medical genetics at the time: the West German-South Korean pharmacogenetic research on the Korean population and the Asia-Oceania Histocompatibility Workshop. At the outset, physicians introduced medical genetics into their laboratory for clinical applications. Involved in cooperative projects on investigating anthropological implications of their clinical work, medical researchers came to use their genetic data for studying the Korean origin. In the process, physicians simply followed a nationalist narrative of the Korean origin rather than criticizing it. This was partially due to their lack of serious interest in anthropological work. Their explanations about the Korean origin would be considered “scientific” while hiding their embracing of the nationalist narrative.

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Section: 한국의 의학 유전학: 진단검사로서의 “유전의학”unclassified

Doctors Discussing “the Root of Koreans”: Medical Genetics and the Korean Origin, 1975-1987

Hyun¹

2019

Korean J Med Hist

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“…Historians of science, technology, and medicine in Korea have investigated how Japanese colonial discursive practices persisted in Korea after WWII despite the US-led reformation of science and medical education and research Mizuno et al (2018). seeks the transformation of Japanese colonial development in transport and power infrastructure into the Cold War technical and medical aid in Asia Hyun (2017). andJung and Kim (2017) reveal how colonial networks between Japanese and Korean scientists were reconstructed and reconnected in the new Cold War context, whileKim (2016) shows how a Korean physical anthropologist trained in colonial medical institutions recycled colonial knowledge for nationalist purposes.…”

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Blood purity and scientific independence: blood science and postcolonial struggles in Korea, 1926–1975

Hyun

2019

Sci Context

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ArgumentAfter World War II, blood groups became a symbol of anti-racial science. This paper aims to shed new light on the post-WWII history of blood groups and race, illuminating the postcolonial revitalization of racial serology in South Korea. In the prewar period, Japanese serologists developed a serological anthropology of Koreans in tandem with Japanese colonialism. The pioneering Korean hematologist Yi Samyŏl , inspired by decolonization movements during the 1960s, excavated and appropriated colonial serological anthropology to prove Koreans as biologically independent from the Japanese. However, his racial serology of Koreans shared colonial racism with Japanese anthropology, despite his anti-colonial nationalism.

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The history of science through the prism of race

Burton,

Ghoshal

2024

BJHS Themes

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One methodological approach to grasping a ‘big-picture’ history of modern science involves tracing the complex entanglements between scientific knowledge and the development of racism and racialized economic systems. Indeed, no historical account of any scientific field can be complete without acknowledging the role of race as an intellectual, social or economic factor. We substantiate this argument through a synthetic review of three overlapping threads in the historiography of science. First, historical research on ‘race science’ has analysed the formation of disciplines directly involved in constructing scientific concepts of race, including medicine, anthropology, linguistics, phrenology, psychology, archaeology and genetics. Second, historians have demonstrated that connections between race and science are not limited to the domain of race science. Rather, European imperial expansion, colonialism and capitalism created the foundational infrastructures undergirding the emergence of modern professional science. Finally, new research shows how race remains covertly embedded in theoretical frameworks, statistical formulae and technological devices still used by scientists today. Through these examples, we perceive a big-picture history of science in which its co-constitution with race links localized case studies and imperial narratives across space and time.

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Making Postcolonial Connections: The Role of a Japanese Research Network in the Emer-gence of Human Genetics in South Korea, 1941-1968

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Doctors Discussing “the Root of Koreans”: Medical Genetics and the Korean Origin, 1975-1987

Doctors Discussing “the Root of Koreans”: Medical Genetics and the Korean Origin, 1975-1987

Blood purity and scientific independence: blood science and postcolonial struggles in Korea, 1926–1975

The history of science through the prism of race

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