Blood groups and human groups: Collecting and calibrating genetic data after World War Two

• Published in: Studies in history and philosophy of science. Part C, Studies in history and philosophy of biological and biomedical sciences Vol. 47; pp. 74 - 86
• Main Author: Bangham, Jenny
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Blood; Blood Group Antigens - history; Blood groups; Collection; Colonialism - history; Continental Population Groups - genetics; Continental Population Groups - history; Data Collection - history; Genetics; Genetics, Population - history; Health Resources; History, 20th Century; Humans; Laboratories - history; Literature, Modern; National Blood Transfusion Service; Population Groups - genetics; Populations; Public Health - history; World Health Organization; World War II; Genetics; Collection; Populations; World Health Organization; National Blood Transfusion Service; Blood groups
• ISSN: 1369-8486; 1879-2499; 1879-2499
• DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.05.008

Arthur Mourant's The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups (1954) was an “indispensable” reference book on the “anthropology of blood groups” containing a vast collection of human genetic data. It was based on the results of blood-grouping tests carried out on half-a-million people and drew together studies on diverse populations around the world: from rural communities, to religious exiles, to volunteer transfusion donors. This paper pieces together sequential stages in the production of a small fraction of the blood-group data in Mourant's book, to examine how he and his colleagues made genetic data from people. Using sources from several collecting projects, I follow how blood was encountered, how it was inscribed, and how it was turned into a laboratory resource. I trace Mourant's analytical and representational strategies to make blood groups both credibly ‘genetic’ and understood as relevant to human ancestry, race and history. In this story, ‘populations’ were not simply given, but were produced through public health, colonial and post-colonial institutions, and by the labour and expertise of subjects, assistants and mediators. Genetic data were not self-evidently ‘biological’, but were shaped by existing historical and geographical identities, by political relationships, and by notions of kinship and belonging. •Arthur Mourant's The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups (1954) was a vast collection of population genetic data.•It presented blood-group frequencies as a ‘scientific’ methodology for studying human diversity.•The paper follows how Mourant and his colleagues made population genetic data.•Data were structured by the ways in which populations were defined and accessed by researchers.•Populations were shaped by institutions, governments, and historical, racial and national identities.