Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic research working in cancer genetic clinics in the south of Brazil this paper examines the variety of ambiguities generated by attention to ancestry and population difference in scientific research and clinical practice related to breast cancer

Paper long abstract:

Growing global interest in human genetic variation related to population differences in disease risk, incidence and mortality is diversely informing scientific and medical approaches to breast cancer. A concern to address health disparities has begun to intersect with an emphasis on identifying the 'ethnic minority spectrum' of gene variants and understanding how ancestry maybe implicated in breast cancer risk, incidence or prognosis. Drawing on ethnographic research in the southern part of Brazil working in cancer genetic clinics this paper examines how a complex of set of social, historical and scientific discourses concerning colonial histories, European immigration, population difference and diversity, as well as regional specificity, are dynamically informing the way notions of genetic ancestry and admixture as risk for (or protection from) breast cancer are being articulated and constituted. The paper highlights the different registers of potentiality and uncertainty this generates for patients, their families and communities of health/scientific practitioners caught up in the work of constituting the past as a resource in the pursuit of preventable futures within an emerging field of breast cancer genetics in Brazil.