Paper short abstract:

The presentation aims to discuss the integration of Brazilian research on human and medical genetics in the global context, analyzing processes of international division of scientific labor among Brazilian laboratories, accounting for it through the analytical framework of center/periphery dynamics.

Paper long abstract:

The presentation aims to discuss the integration of Brazilian research on human and medical genetics in the global context, analyzing processes of international division of scientific labor among Brazilian laboratories, accounting for it through the analytical framework of center/periphery dynamics. In parallel, I intend to analyze the influence of the international circulation of ideas and researchers - and the growing internationalization of higher education - in the careers of Brazilian human geneticists, upon their return to the country after a period abroad. To look at the division of scientific labor as well as at knowledge circulation in terms of center and periphery is to take into account the assumption that scientific production is unevenly divided between different regions around the world. Departing from the analysis of the institutionalization of genetics research in Brazil, one can identify strategies by researchers aimed at enabling them to access international networks, from the "choice" to work with tropical organisms (for example, species of fruit flies that do not exist in temperate climates), or dealing with isolated human populations, as is the case through the genetic study of indigenous peoples. This - conditioned - decision has enabled the production of original data without the need to compete directly with international research centers, using "comparative advantages" provided by geographical location. Such a "subordinate integration" (Kreimer, 2006) is transformed and reenacted in contemporary human genetics laboratories, the focus of the proposed presentation.