Hwan Hyun Kwon

After 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 (1926-2015), inspired by decolonization movements during the 1960s, excavated and appropr

This paper examines the planning, execution, and closure of the US-Korea Cooperative Ecological Survey project in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the 1960s. In this period, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) initiated bilateral scientific cooperation between the NAS and similar organizations in developing countries along the line of the developmental turn of U.S. foreign assistance. Working closely with the NAS, U.S. conservationists used this scheme to introduce nature conservat

Recent literature on the history of medicine in colonial Korea has revealed that Japanese medical scientists studied Korean bodies to expose racial differences between the Japanese and Koreans and justify Japanese colonial rule. Previous scholars, however, have focused mainly on finding a connection between colonial medical research and eugenics. This article attempts to consider things as yet underinvestigated, in particular, the way in which medical research on Koreans emerged and was intertwi

Focusing on South Korean biologists and their efforts to establish national parks in the 1960s and 1970s, I illuminate the ways in which they negotiated their relationship with the ecological diplomacy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the anti-communist and developmentalist diplomacy of the South Korean government. To justify their activities, these South Korean biologists emphasized the importance of nature conservation activities in the competition for internati

While gene doping and other technological means of sport enhancement have become a topic of ethical debate, a major outcome from genomic research in sports is often linked to the regulation of doping. In particular, researchers within the field of anti-doping science, a regulatory science that aims to develop scientific solutions for regulating doped athletes, have conducted genomic research on anabolic-androgenic steroids. Genomic knowledge on anabolic-androgenic steroids, a knowledge base that

There has been a growing concern about a new way of thinking about race in genomics. STS scholars have tried to make sense of the ways race came to be a part of the scientific, medical, and legal fields in the name of genomics. This article adds to this STS literature on race and genomics with an analysis of antidoping science, a circuit of knowledge making that reifies race in terms of genomics but that thus far has been ignored by STS scholars. By engaging with the STS perspective on genomics

South Korea in the 1960s is remembered as an era marked by the rapid development of science and technology, as well as the growth of the domestic economy. Histori-ans of science have described the meaningful advancement of science during this period as a result of the establishment of a Korean science and technology system that overturned Japanese colonial precedents and sought support from U.S. science policy. In this study, however, I seek to understand the scientific achievement of South Kore

Abstract By focusing on the emergence and integration of “hybrid children” (konketsuji) anthropology into the Human Adaptability section of the International Biological Program (HA-IBP) in Japan during the 1950s and 1970s, this paper presents how transnational dynamics and mechanisms played out in shaping and maintaining the racist aspects while simultaneously allowed them to be included in the HA-IBP framework. It argues that Japanese anthropologists operated a double play between their nationa

In recent years, science diplomacy has swept both diplomatic and science policy circles around the world. Japan and South Korea are no exception and science and technology diplomacy (S&T diplomacy) is now the core agenda for their foreign affairs and science policy branches. In both countries, despite the rising interest in S&T diplomacy, its long history is only vaguely recognized, as until now, those directly involved in current science diplomacy have largely failed to focus on it. To address

Transnational collaborations in Cold War East Asia were shaped by unstable and fragile relationships in politically charged environments. Inherently characterized by power imbalances, the region’s collaborations became sites of both scientific opportunities and contention. Building on collaboration studies that addressed power imbalances, we introduce the concept of “contested collaboration,” to analyze the processes and strategies employed by local actors, especially those on the weaker side, t

This article examines the interaction between human population genetics and the reconstruction of national identities and histories. Since the first use of mitochondrial DNA analysis of human origins in 1987, scientific research on population history using genetic technologies, or genetic history studies, has flourished, engaging with diverse politics of social identity and national belonging across the globe. Previous scholars have stated that a distinct feature of genetic history studies is th