From Exceptional Man to Exceptional Subject: Indigenous Genes and Theorizing Human Microevolution in Brazil

• In Event: Examining the Exceptional: Case Studies of Knowledge Production in Biomedicine and Science

Abstract

This paper examines the transformation of one Indigenous man into an exceptional scientific subject. Already famous in Brazil when a team of researchers arrived to study his village in 1962, the Xavante leader Apowẽ was the first to be included in an influential pilot study of human population genetics. From a nationally recognized leader, widely depicted in the news as fearsome and authentic, Apowẽ became subject 01. Transformed into countless data points through a genealogical interview, anthropometric measurements, a physical exam and the near-endless analysis of a single blood sample, Apowẽ again became exceptional. Committed to studying Indigenous peoples through a profoundly interdisciplinary approach, the geneticists, anthropologists, and physicians to visit the Xavante villages were deeply interested in the interactions between culture and nature. In their view, Indigenous people were not only useful subjects of study due to their closeness to nature; their socio-cultural and political realities were also of great interest in understanding human evolutionary history. The study of Apowẽ’s community would be replicated again and again, first in other Xavante villages and then in Indigenous communities throughout Brazil, Venezuela and beyond. But Apowẽ’s influence on the thinking of the scientists would carry on for years: research and population modeling would feature Apowẽ’s political prowess, impressive physique, and masculine reproductive aptitude, even into the twenty-first century. This paper shows how Apowẽ’s social relations, political action, and genes have had enduring influence on the development of theories of human microevolution.

Author

• Rosanna Dent, University of Pennsylvania